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Alexander McQueen was praised by many for his fashion design talents. He took his life by hanging a little over a week ago.
The title of a recent Daily Mail [UK] article by Jane Fryer was “A life in fashion: Alexander McQueen was the hooligan of the catwalk who loved to shock – but nothing could [...]
Anne Tyler Lord writes: “Some may think that depression is too ‘depressing’ of a topic for Valentine’s Day. But I think it is the best because it is one of the holidays where many people experience depression, right up there with Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
“And, what better way to care for your heart than [...]
“When you’re in the midst of depression, that’s the scariest thing — it seems that you’re going to feel like that forever. The pain created by depression kills almost 1 million people a year. It almost killed me, and it did kill my aunt.
“If I can give just one person hope that there’s an end [...]
Do you ever feel depressed, anxious, obsessed, compulsive, too sensitive – or just out of it? Does that mean you’re really crazy? What does ‘crazy’ mean anymore, with so many categories of mental disorder? What does ‘normal’ even mean?
Peter D. Kramer, clinical professor of psychiatry at Brown University, notes “Diagnostic labels are proliferating, and mental [...]
In the clip below from her TED conference presentation, writer Elizabeth Gilbert addresses a number of topics related to being creative – including fears and anxieties about “the work you were put on this Earth to do.”
One source of that fear can be the widely-accepted notion that artists are likely to be mentally “unhinged” more [...]
Here is a sampling from the article “Perfectionism and Depression: What to Do When Being a Perfectionist Drags You Down,” by Sedona Training Associates staff and Hale Dwoskin:
Do you ever think the following self-limiting beliefs?
* It’s not OK to make a mistake
* People will not like me if I’m not perfect
* I’ll avoid anything I [...]
In her article, 9 Holiday Depression Busters, Theresa Borchard shows how to keep stress levels low and depression and anxiety at bay over the holidays.
Her 9 tips run from the serious “Avoid Toxic People,” and “Make Your Own Traditions,” to the seemingly frivolous, but ingenious, “Travel With Polyester, Not Linen.”
Here’s a sample:
#9: Exercise Your Funny [...]
Mood disorders like anxiety and depression generally interfere with thinking and creativity.
A variety of writers including Eric Maisel, Kay Redfield Jamison and Tom Wootton express different perspectives on my site Depression and Creativity. There is even a post on Irritable Male Syndrome, about the work of Jed Diamond.
But what about being grumpy?
Here is an intriguing [...]
From article: Help Anxiety, No SAD Times this Winter!, by Jen Crippen.
Now that the clocks have been turned back the days feel very short.
Darkness will fall earlier everyday until December 21st, then the days start getting longer.
This time of year many of us (including myself) start to feel the winter blues. The past few years [...]
This is by Kristin from the Candy Sandwich blog. See some related TalentDevelop links at the end.
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace [...]
According to The National Institute of Mental Health, approximately 21 million American adults, or about 9.5 percent of people 18 and older in a given year, have a mood disorder, including major depression, dysthymia (chronic, mild depression), and bipolar disorder.
[From my article Making Good Use of Depression. Photo: actor Hayden Christensen from the book Crying [...]
In his article “One Approach to Apply Immediately When Stress is Affecting Your Professional and Personal Life!“, Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. writes :
“Mindfulness is the ability to intentionally paying attention to the present moment without our filters of judgment (e.g., good/bad, right/wrong, fair/unfair).
“In other words, it is the art of cultivating the ability to be in [...]
happiness research, mindfulness, depression relief products, positive psychology
Learning to be happy
“It’s almost as if this happiness stuff has anticipated the hard times to come. As we’re going into this recession, perhaps depression, it’s interesting to note there’s been this big upsurge of work on happiness just prior to that.”
That is David Van Nuys, PhD, aka [...]
“Don’t compromise yourself. You’re all you’ve got.” Janis Joplin
One form of compromise is learned helplessness – an emotional and behavioral response in which a human being (or other animal) has learned to “give up” or act as if they are helpless, and loses motivation to act in their own best interest in a situation, even [...]
The darkness before the dawn
“Being happy is something you have to learn.” Harrison Ford
Ford certainly has known plenty of unhappiness. He was shy as a child, bullied at school for not “fitting in.”
According to Laura Silva Quesada, in her article A reminder from Indiana Jones, “Every day, they’d tease the future Indiana Jones, beat [...]
Excerpts from article Art and Happiness, by painter Robert Genn :
In the recently published “Against Happiness,” popular writer Eric Wilson disparages our current love affair with putting on a happy face.
With our “feel good” culture and the widespread use of happy drugs, everybody’s trying to be cheerful and there are no decent dollops of [...]
As she noted at the start of her blog (in 2005), writer Liz Spikol “struggles with mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder and OCD. I was also diagnosed with dissociative disorder N.O.S. — which means I suffer from intermittent depersonalization and derealization.”
Here is part of a New York Times article that includes Spikol and others who [...]
Eric Maisel, PhD, is author of The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Person’s Path Through Depression. In our recent interview, he addresses some of the meaning and mood issues facing creators.
Q: The kinds of anxiety we call stage fright, or fear of the blank canvas (or blank page) — can these be related to meaning [...]
Author, artist, performer, and creativity coach Janet Riehl interviewed Eric Maisel, PhD about his book The Van Gogh Blues: A Creative Person’s Path Through Depression. [Also see it on her site riehlife.com, with additional links.]
Janet Riehl: Eric, what I hear you saying is that when creative people in particular maintain a connection to their [...]
“She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, or manic depression. O’Connor describes the illness as like having a gaping hole in the centre of her being… The diagnosis, and then the drugs, gave her back her creativity.”
Excerpted from the article “Sinead O’Connor talks music, mental illness and men,” by Sheryl Garratt [London Times] :
The new album, [...]
“Sometimes you get to a point where you can’t stop what you are thinking. It’s like you’re being taken over by a demon.”
Excerpts from article: Jennifer Capriati tries to beat her demons, By Wayne Coffey, NYDailyNews.com July 15th 2007:
Photo: Former child prodigy Jennifer Capriati is finding peace in her life in her home in Jupiter, [...]
“I only know that summer sang in me a little while, that in me sings no more.”
That excerpt from one of her sonnets expresses how much poet Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) probably knew of depression.
Singer Marie Osmond has described her experiences suffering from postpartum depression in her book Behind the Smile: “I’m collapsed in [...]
One study has shown that as young as the fifth grade, Asian-American girls have the highest rate of depression… “Model minority” pressure — the pressure some Asian-American families put on children to be high achievers at school and professionally — helps explain the problem.
Professor Eliza Noh says, “In my study, the model minority pressure is [...]
“There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness [bipolar disorder]. When you’re high it’s tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones.”
Psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison, M.D. – in her article What [...]
Actor Virginia Madsen talks about her experience in ski school [Yes, Virginia, by Karen Breslau, More Magazine]:
Her third day on skis [Breslau writes], she persuaded her instructor to take her to the top of a black-diamond run — the kind inevitably named Devil’s Gulch or Dead Man’s Curve. She wanted to test herself.
“I was hurling [...]
