I have stopped describing what depression feels like to the person with no experience of this “black dog,” as Winston Churchill called it, or even an occasional bout of melancholy, because my inability to express the physical and mental deterioration, the frustration at trying to articulate my madness, tends to make my black dog growl and attack strangers. I agree with the ever-wise William Styron who wrote in his classic, Darkness Visible:

Depression is a disorder of mood, so mysteriously painful and elusive in the way it becomes known to the self — to the mediating intellect — as to verge close to being beyond description. It thus remains nearly incomprehensible to those who have not experienced it in its extreme mode.

The closest description Styron finds is that of drowning or suffocation.

Finding the right therapist is difficult. In the last 12 years, I’ve been through half a dozen of them. I have no doubt that most of these therapists would blame me for these high turnover rates. They would say I have some sort of inability to communicate my needs or that I’m not ready to move forward.

I say that it’s simply really, really hard to find the correct fit and that the wrong fit can bring me frustration I don’t need. I would rather have no therapist than one who continually frustrates me.

A few weeks ago, I told a therapist I had gone to a handful of times that I did not want to continue seeing her. We’ll call her “Lynn.” Lynn was perfectly nice and was a good listener, but that was sort of the problem.

All she did was listen and say things like, “well, what did that feel like?” and “what would that look like to you?” Lynn was also one of those therapists who immediately wanted to delve into my family and my childhood. This approach was not at all what I was looking for. I wanted someone who would address my current situations and make suggestions.

This isn’t the blog post I planned to write. I might get to that one eventually; it’s still kicking around in my head and I still know what I want to say. But this one — I needed to make a couple of stops on the way home, and I didn’t, because I had to race back to the laptop. The words kept wanting out. When you’re a writer, that’s how you know you’re on to something.

While I was out driving around, this old song, “Hold On,” by Kansas, came on the radio station. I grew up — in Kansas, poetically enough — listening to Kansas and Styx and Rush and Van Halen and Peter Frampton, and yes, even Rick Springfield.¹

But here are the opening lyrics to the song:

Look in the mirror and tell me
Just what you see
What have the years of your life
Taught you to be?
Innocence dyin’ in so many ways
Things that you dream of are lost
Lost in the haze

Most people, somehow or another, are tormented — whether by cruel others or the workings of their own cruel minds — throughout adolescence.

Lucky me: I got both.

1. I have a soft spot for Rick Springfield. Try not to mock me. He’s 62 and he’s still smokin’ hot, and he can still sing, and he was the cause of some happy memories from my teens. [↩]

Benjamin Nugent believes he had Asperger’s Syndrome (a milder form of austim).

Who made this diagnosis? His mom.

His mom was so convinced that her then 17-year-old teenage son had this disorder, she put in him in an educational video about Asperger’s. Asperger’s is usually diagnosed in childhood or as a young teenager, and is characterized by a severe degree of social impairment, isolation, and what others might see as eccentric behavior.

While I commend Mr. Nugent for sharing his story with the world, I have to really question his understanding of how mental disorders are diagnosed by mental health clinicians.

Here’s his story…

Mugagga Kintu is the writer/director of a new independent film called “Catch the Bus” or “CTB”. As you may know, the phrase “CTB” means to commit suicide.

The Kickstarter website has a video about the film, a question & answer segment that explains the details of the film & information on how you can donate & where the donated money goes (post-production of the film). As director Kintu notes in the interview on the website, “I think it would be very beneficial for people to see this message and to see this film because the message is not suicide, but it’s really about resurrecting yourself from that dark place and finishing your dreams.”

“Like they say, sometimes you’ve got to wake up in order to make your dreams come true.”

We couldn’t agree more.

Click here to learn more about Catch the Bus.

I’m asking for your help in getting Mugagga the funding and support he needs to finish this film. Psych Central and I have pledged our support for the film, and hope that if you have even just $1 or $2 to spare, you also do the same. Time is short, however, as he only has less than 2 weeks to raise the remaining $1,400 he needs.

For a long while I was afraid to write things such as “I am mentally ill” or “I am bipolar.” I was afraid of labels.

By calling myself a manic-depressive would I trap my psyche in “sick” mode? By accepting my diagnosis of bipolar disorder, would I prevent healing? By writing the words “I am mentally ill,” was I holding myself to a place that I was, but not where I am now, or where I could go?

I spent a fair amount of time pondering this (I’m a natural ruminator)…. I thought about attracting bad karma by writing about my illness, about feeding my anxiety by connecting with others who also struggle with depression, about stifling my spirit by posing all of my questions and frustrations online in an effort to figure out and assemble this humongous, Anchisaurus (a kind of dinosaur) 500-plus piece puzzle of mental illness.

And then I arrived at this guess (because there are no answers): No.

According to artist Kelly Rae Roberts in her book Taking Flight: Inspiration And Techniques To Give Your Creative Spirit Wings, embracing our vulnerability is key to creativity.

As she writes, “Regardless of our craft or art form of choice, some of our best work can come from a place of vulnerability, of being open to the burdens and even the joy in our lives, then releasing it all.”

Unlike many people think, vulnerability doesn’t mean being weak or sharing deep-seated secrets, Roberts writes. Instead, it means being honest about how you’re currently feeling and infusing those feelings into your work. It means speaking your heart.

Your vulnerability also may have many faces. It may look like gratitude, sadness, joy or overwhelm — among others.

There are a ton of good stories out there about people’s experiences with psychotherapy, and we want to feature them each week here on the World of Psychology. By shedding more light on the process of therapy, we believe it will make people more comfortable and perhaps get a better understanding of it.

So we’re putting out a call for any and all psychotherapy stories — from therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, clients and patients. If you have a story you want to tell and can do so in under 1,400 words, we’re interested.

We’re not looking (just) for salacious stories. We’re looking for stories that show the personal nature of therapy, and how it can help people.

Read on for details…

Inspiring. Sobering. Entertaining. Touching. Enriching.

This year has been great for brain and behavior videos, with an ever-growing number of lectures and educational videos appearing online, as well as savvy homemade videos in social media. Conversations about mental health are increasingly entering the mainstream, and videos like these spark dialogue, reduce ignorance, assist viewers, and fight stigma. They’re also a great distraction, and a way to relax without feeling guilty about wasting time.

Each of the videos on this list has been chosen as being among the best of its kind made this year, ranging from a contest winner to viral videos to high profile lectures. With so much great work out there, I can’t wait to see more in 2012 (follow Channel N to view what I find).

But first, let’s celebrate 2011 in videos.

Anyone who’s experienced a loved one — whether a family member or friend — who has schizophrenia knows it is often an unpredictable and sometimes-scary relationship. Scary because you’re never quite sure what’s coming next, or how a particular hallucination might manifest itself in the person’s behavior or decisions.

But schizophrenia, like all mental illness, can also be a teacher. Albeit often a hard one.

Dr. Anne Aspler, writing in the Globe and Mail earlier this week, recounts her experiences in what she’s learned in growing up with a mother who suffers from schizophrenia, and the fear she lived in during her early adulthood that she, too, might suffer from this disorder.

More and more people are exposed to psychiatric drugs earlier and earlier in their lives. Some professional associations now say children as young as 4 years old are old enough to start receiving medications — usually with little research demonstrating their long-term safety on a still-developing brain.

With so many people growing up medicated and on psychiatric medications, it seems like a good time to launch a blog that talks about the in’s and out’s of living a life medicated. I’m proud to introduce My Meds, My Self with Kaitlin Bell Barnett.

Kaitlin will discuss the experience of taking psychiatric meds, with a focus on long-term use, as opposed to people new to medication treatment altogether.

“In my experience, there’s lots of information available for people in the latter category to help them adjust to psychiatric drugs, but there’s very little for people who are supposed to be old hands at it.

Dan Fields, a consultant to the Grief Support Services of the Samaritans, recently crafted a beautiful piece that articulates what his dysthymia feels like.

I think his description does a better job of communicating the subtle signs of male depression than any list of symptoms I could throw at you. I have excerpted his profile from the helpful site, Families for Depression Awareness. However, I urge you to follow the link because he explains later in the piece what has worked for him.

I’ve struggled with depression at greater or lesser intensity since my teens. The word “depression” suggests sadness, and this is certainly one aspect of the disorder.