A recent article published on Yahoo Health has caused some major controversy in the mental health field.  The article titled, “DSM-5: Will Millions More Americans be Diagnosed with Mental Illness?” discusses, in a nutshell, the following:

The impending publication of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5) has kindled fiery debate about whether Americans are being vastly over-diagnosed with mental illness or if Americans are psychologically sicker than they used to be.

The new “bible” of psychiatric diagnoses, which will be released later this month, includes new disorders relating to grief, childhood temper tantrums, binge eating, PMS, and painful sex (now called genito-pelvic pain/penetration disorder), among others. It has also changed how existing conditions—including oft-polarizing ADHD and autism—are diagnosed.

According to the new definitions the DSM-5 uses, some experts predict about 50 percent of U.S. citizens could be diagnosed as “mentally ill” at some point during their lifetime.

Experts and organizations have given their two cents on the whole thing, but I am interested in the viewpoints and stories of people who have actually grabbled with their mental illness. When I published my tell all book, “Inside the Insane” about treatment of the mentally ill in LA County hospitals, a lot of people were not happy with my insight, and said I wasn’t a “clinician” so my views were not valid. Ah, no.  Try living with a disease and experiencing it firsthand.  You can’t get that insight out of a textbook ok.

Breaking up sucks.  There really is no other way to say it.  But, what’s worse, is when we break-up, and loath the loneliness, the forced changes you have to make in your life, the loss, and the sadness to the point where we return to the relationship.  We think the reasons we broke up aren’t as bad as the pain we feel when we are broken up, so we go back.

When we find ourselves breaking up, then getting back together, then breaking up, we live a life of an in-between break up.  This is not good.  This is not healthy.  It takes strength, confidence and blind faith that things will be ok, but sometimes we  fail to realize that it takes time, and discipline to stand by a break-up, and when you do, you will be able to move forward, and build back your life.

Poem: The In-Between Break-Up

A break up really hurts

When you don’t stick to it.

Your logic

Loses its freedom.

Your independence

Has no voice.

You are back where you were

Before you made the break.

I consider the twenties a wash.  A lot of us don’t like to remember, or sometimes even admit, to things we experienced or did prior to getting help.

Self-medication is a loose term.  Especially when we used it as an excuse for mania and now, with a proper mood stabilizer, that term “self medication” should no longer exist.  I say should but we are all prone to old habits.  Old habits are just that, habits, which don’t get affected by any form of medication. And you can’t lean on “self-medication” as an excuse to engaging in bad habits once you get stabilized.

I recall the first time I took my mood stabilizer.  I was driving down Sunset Blvd. and didn’t drive with urgency.  I experienced a whole new kind of relaxation that felt like, or equivalent to, the feeling of having a couple glasses of wine, or a joint.  It hit me that I didn’t need alcohol or marijuana to curb my hypomania.  Yes, I thought.  I am free from wild restless nights of using alcohol to get to sleep, and stop the internal combusting in my brain, and I can finally feel what it’s like to walk in the world without excessive energy.  My problems are solved!

It was an opportunity for me to stop my “self medication.”  I thought awesome, I can switch out my bad habits and pop a pill and everything will be as it should be. My mood stabilizer will replace my “self-medication.”

Depression can be so overwhelming that sometimes it seems too hard, too big, and too much to deal with, so much that we lose sight of little things we can do to reduce depression that go a long way.

Here are 4 simple things to consider doing when depression seems too much to handle:

1. Make Your Bed – Make a point to make your bed every morning. Looking at a disheveled bed throughout your day is, quite frankly, sad. Getting back into an unmade bed at the end of your day is a reminder off the cyclical nature of depression. Break the habit of leaving your bed unkempt, and no matter when you manage to get up and out of your bed, turn around and put it back together.

2. Dressing for the Store – When you run errands and you are out visible in the world, try and ditch the sweats. When I went through a depression, I used to walk to my local grocery store in my old go-to depression clothes and, quite honestly, looked like s**t.  I felt people looking at me and looking away.  It was as though depression was contagious, and it only made me more isolative and alone. When we are depressed, we tend to have a depression uniform that we wear.  Don’t let your clothes be a depression outfit. You might not care what you look like, but, you will feel a wave of negativity when you find yourself in a public place, and are met with unnecessary looks from people that have no idea what you’re going through. People can be rude.  Don’t give them the opportunity to feed your depression.

3. Wash Your Car – A lot of us commute to work, and spend a fair amount of time in our cars. Depression can be dirty. Take your car to the car wash and treat yourself to a fresh clean car. Don’t spend time in a mobile dirty hole. You’re going to have to make errands, why not drive in style.

Miley Cyrus is known to be a cutter, Amanda Bynes is said to suffer from manic depression.  In our celebrity driven culture, these young celebrities are caught on tape acting bizarre, or photographed by the paparazzi with scandalous pictures, or, they themselves are posting their own weird pictures, and random tweets that question their mental stability.

Recently, Bynes was photographed smoking weed in her car while driving through West Hollywood, while Cyrus was caught smoking a joint on a balcony. The Huffington Post wrote that Bynes was kicked out of a gym for smoking weed two days ago, and three days ago, the New York Daily News wrote that she was seen walking around New York with a blue scarf covering her head.

These previous notorious Disney Stars are quite frankly, losing it. And odd, weird, spiraling down behavior is at the forefront of the media.

Having said that, why can’t we capitalize on the opportunity to teach the younger generation about mental illness through celebrities that publically manifest a breakdown?  Unfortunately, instead of addressing the possibility of self-medication, they are labeled pot heads. Unfortunately, their downward spiral becomes gossip, instead of a tool for education, and an opportunity for them to get psychiatric help.

Being a human being is hard, and sometimes we forget that living in a body and mind is not easy.  We all experience an array of emotions, and sometimes it’s hard to know if your mood needs pharmaceutical attention, or not.  

Recently I was up late watching TV and came across an ad for a prescriptive drug:

• Do you have trouble falling asleep – Yes
• Have you become socially withdrawn – Yes
• Do you feel sad, lonely, or depressed – Yes, Yes, Yes

Wait, doesn’t everyone feel these things? – YES!

When pharmaceutical companies push their products you can start to think you need help.  As a culture, we tend to throw medications at a problem instead of actually taking a moment to acknowledge that you might simply be experiencing what it means to be a human being.  When you look around there are people struggling with the same “symptoms” yet, they find a way to manage without using a drug. It is hard to face your emotions.  It is hard to adjust your life to suite your needs.  It is hard to make changes to help yourself.  Being a human being is hard and requires personal attention outside of popping a pill.  It’s not easy, but it’s better than a temporary solution that might become a life long addiction.

Next time you watch a commercial selling a pharmaceutical drug, take a moment and ask yourself: Am I just being human?

Confident man photo available from Shutterstock

Breaking up is hard, getting dumped might be worse, however, there are some ways to make it light on the heart, and not so grim.  Sounds frivolous, but some simple things can take the heat off, and allow you a starting place to make some changes, and begin the process of starting over.

Here are 7 minor things you can do to jump start a broken heart:

1. Change your sheets – aka toss the ones you slept in with your partner. You don’t have to get rid of your bed, just the sheets for starters.
2. Take a day trip – get out of your environment for a weekend and take a trip to a place you used to go to before you were a couple.  Coming across places in your local environment that you both shared makes it hard on the heart, so nurture yourself and splurge with a short trip out of town experience.
3. Visit the pet store – it is a proven fact that animals help with depression and loneliness.  However, adopting an animal is a serious commitment that might be a knee jerk reaction to being dumped, so make it less extreme and visit your local pet shop.  Play with the bunnies, or new litter of puppies. Buy yourself a simple pet that is easy to manage like a gold fish. A Chinese fighter fish might help temper your anger.
4. Get a foot massage – you might be taking some long walks to clear your head, so, pamper your feet and give them some foot therapy.
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Some of us struggle with deciphering the difference between being selfish versus self-full.  Feeling selfish can lead to feelings of guilt or confusion cause sometimes it’s hard to know the difference between taking care of yourself, versus coming across as selfish.

Here are three simple ideas to ask yourself, and think about, when you are faced with this dilemma:

1. Why do you feel guilty? – Guilt is an emotion that stems from the self.  We think someone makes us feel guilty when really you are making yourself feel guilty. You can control your guilt once you acknowledge it, so when guilt crosses your mind, take a deep breath and let it go.
2. What is stopping you from taking care of yourself? – Think about why you don’t find time for yourself.  Notice I didn’t say can’t cause you can, you simply choose not to. So, whatever is holding you back can be managed because you are in charge of you. Don’t hold yourself back from yourself.
3. Saying no is not a crime – Saying no is saying yes to you.

Being Self-full – We need time to take care of ourselves, and sometimes it’s hard to know when we require me time. It is difficult to be present with someone when you are distracted with a need to have time alone. The best way to be a good parent, or friend, or partner, is to keep in mind that you can’t love others without loving yourself, so take time to love yourself and you’ll find being self-full is truly the antithesis of selfish.

Love yourself photo available from Shutterstock