Anyone who has experienced grief can testify that it is more complex than mere despondency. “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear,” C. S. Lewis wrote in “A Grief Observed,” his slim account of the months after the death of his wife, from cancer. Scientists have found that grief, like fear, is a stress reaction, attended by deep physiological changes.
In memory of my brother…
I wrote this letter and mailed it to my brother about 6 months before he died. Today is the three year anniversary of his death. I am sharing this in his memory. I actually had told him all of this at one time or another while he was alive but before he died it got... Continue Reading →
DSM5 medicalizing grief in the New York Times today: Good Grief
The DSM moves towards officially pathologizing grief and bereavement. The practice of doing so, is, of course, not new. Lots of people already begin their journeys on psych meds as a result of a death or loss that is then medicated. This is an important enough issue to bring up again even though NPR did... Continue Reading →
Media madness…news and blogs (updated)
Monday reading... Holistic Recovery from Schizophrenia: Big NIMH -- The pharma bamboozle is particularly poignant, because of the millions of lives wasted and lost. When Not to Buy Organic! -- list of foods that are safe to buy non-organic and those that one should absolutely only eat if organic. First Do No Harm and DSM... Continue Reading →
Healing the dark emotions
I bought a magazine today. The Sun---it is among other things also a spiritually oriented magazine. I bought it because I saw there was an article and interview about a woman named Miriam Greenspan whom I'd never heard of before but when I glanced at the brief excerpt I knew I would get something from... Continue Reading →
Quotes from the book: “Healing through the dark emotions”
I once posted an interview of Miriam Greenspan on this book of hers entitled, "healing through the dark emotions: The wisdom of grief, fear and despair." After reading and posting parts of that interview I bought her book after my brother died. It's a wonderful book and speaks to any human pain or suffering. Not... Continue Reading →
What Is Mental Illness? Schizophrenia to Bipolar Psychology
Another John Breeding youtube video: Click here to see more videos from PsycheTruth featuring John Breeding Visit Dr. Breeding's Website here
A rant and a rave—gotta clear my chest
I've been dying to write this post all day. Whether I post it or not will remain to be seen. Today again I've been profoundly ill. I got up and had to go back to bed with nausea and pain for 3 hours. It's 3 pm now and I'm again barely functioning. My main emotion... Continue Reading →
The labyrinth
I am doing better. I am eating again and I sleep. The physical pain is gone. I am, however, deeply depressed. I see that this depression is a result of circumstances exacerbated by the withdrawals. I am mourning the loss of my brother and also the end of a friendship. Someone I met in the... Continue Reading →
In memory of a friend
The loss of my brother was not the first serious loss in my life. In fact, I lost someone who was much like a brother when I was about 21--he was a year younger than me and he died of AIDS---it was 1987---long before the advent of protease inhibitors. We grew up together in a... Continue Reading →
Everything Matters 
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