Mental Illness By Way of Hormones

That I have a mood disorder goes unquestioned; the true nature and biological aspects of cause are up in the air. Besides the usual childhood traumas and genetic influences, it looks like hormones are in part to blame. Don’t start any hating about stigmatizing women’s normal, natural cycle, because I’m not talking about a normal experience.

I’m talking about a set of oversensitive physiological responses to and/or chronic imbalances of basic hormones like adrenaline, cortisol, estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. The kind of sensitivity to adrenaline, for example, that means I can’t have medications containing epinephrine (aka adrenaline, often found in injectable local anesthetics, to reduce bleeding) because it immediately sends me into shock.

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Goals Are For Losers

Time flies, fun or not. A week, a month, a year simply…vanishes. I graduated a year ago, and it has taken most of that year to recover enough to think about next steps. Another job search, and probably moving. Continuing efforts to improve my health. Things like that.

But then my therapist (a.k.a. Hippie Dude) started asking about long-term goals, after discussing the issue of career choices for ages and getting nowhere. So goals might help, right? I gave it a try despite my doubts and made lists of “goals” for various part of my life.

A Quandary: Mental Illness, Public Safety

Due to quite a few recent tragedies, debates about mental illness have been prominent in the public eye. Perhaps they aren’t as visible as, say, gun control laws or Lance Armstrong’s shadiness, but they have quite a presence.

The debate is couched in terms that express “concern” for people who are mentally ill, and no doubt many commentators do feel concerned about people with mental illness.

Disorder and the Internet : The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Internet.

It’s a word that has become synonymous with “life”.  How many hours a day can we say that we are “online”?  For some, like smartphone users, we are never truly offline.  The internet has become a deeply embedded part of our lives.  With all of the information available, social networks active and potential people to meet oceans and countries away, the entire world is at our fingertips.  How could this ever be considered a bad thing?