Jane's Mental Health Source Page

I’ve been thinking about how depression affects one’s consistency as a leader.

We often read about depression in a stereotypical context: we aren’t envisioning a “high functioning” person when we think about the word “depression”. We aren’t thinking about those movers and shakers at the workplace, people who are viewed as the rising stars or high performers… but the truth is, we are out there! We depressives can be introverts and extroverts, we can be in executive and leadership positions…

We depressives can appear fantastically high functioning to people who can’t tell the difference.

[Sometimes we ourselves can barely tell the difference. This is why we blame ourselves first, some of us who enter into a depressive episode.] Read the rest of this entry »

Every time I start thinking about a social model of neurological disability and discounting the relevance of a medical model of neurological disability, I will remember Jessica Dolin.

“Catching a darkness” has been one of my favorite bipolar disorder personal websites. I first visited in 1998 when I started my personal “homepage” on depression and bipolar disorder.

The haunting images captured by the Jessica’s brother is more telling of the suffering endured by patients with bipolar disorder than any amount of scientific papers I can read. Every couple of years, I’d visit the site; I’d be encouraged about updates of Jessica doing well. Then Jessica committed suicide on May 14, 2003. Read the rest of this entry »

According to Stanford’s Robert Sapolsky, depression is a medical mystery that is as real of a biological disease as diabetes.

LECTURE NOTES: Read the rest of this entry »

One of the better graphics I’ve made this year. Read the rest of this entry »

A belief I had long held, that I have come to feel ambivalent about is that my depression is a disease.

I’m still sorting through this, so bear with me if this reads rough.

Until recently, depression was a disease – my disease.

Until recently, I viewed depression as a cancer – in fact I liked how someone had once equated depression as “cancer of the soul”. It certainly felt like that to me, when I was suffering the serious effects of this condition and genuinely believed that existing was an exercise in mental and psychic pain.

Until recently, my relationship with depression was like a bad break-up.

You know the kind: where you and your ex live in the same small town and you do your best not to run into each other. But you live in the same small town and you know it is only a matter of time. You WILL bump into each other, life makes sure of that, and you hope it wouldn’t be too painful because the break-up was so bad – yes, it was THAT bad. Seeing each other jars your memories and in spite of your best efforts you are transported back into recurring dreams – nightmares you can’t get rid of. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear “Neurodiversity” Advocates:

I know I am not autistic.
I know I am not neurotypical.
I am an “Other”.

Personally, I think the accurate description of non-autistic people is “Non-Autistic”, not “Neurotypical.”
Just like the accurate description of non-depressive people is “Non-Depressive”, not “Normal”.

Using “neurotypical” to blanket all non-autistics create a wider chasm of “us versus them”, and contraindicates the ultimate goal of neurodiversity.

My brain is wired with vulnerability to depression and anxiety. Am I neurotypical?

I don’t feel neurotypical. Heck, I don’t even feel “typical” let alone “neuro-” typical.
Read the rest of this entry »