Far too many stories and firsthand accounts of recovery are terminal and end with a cure or picturesque life for the consumer of services or “sick” person. This recovery narrative is different. This is a story about struggle, ongoing collateral pushback from friends, and internalized self-doubt. Chronic illness, […]
The time is upon us! I need to address the ongoing rumors circulating around my writing. Ever since I have announced a second novella, Small Fingernails, Even Less Love 💕 , there has been undeniable chatter in the literary world. Upon hearing the new novella was, in fact, […]
I have been accused of several crimes, socially unacceptable behaviors, and a litany of outrageous transgressions during my mental illness.
Research must be wholly beneficial to the public, it must be free and rife for regard for society. As a prosumer and mental health interventionist researcher, I have sought nothing but a bold new model that works for the masses. Therapy that is both targeted, yet beneficial to […]
I am a rhetoric scholar and a person with lived experience with schizophrenia. I am also a prosumer. My identity aside, the status of Disability studies and narratives, memoirs, and stories that aim to reclaim the writers lost authorial voice are in demand. These stories offer catharsis—Upon reflection, […]
When you carry a mental health diagnosis, you are in almost constant fear of relapsing
There is no question that family participation in a person’s mental health treatment is beneficial and critical to manage the long-standing problems that surface during a person’s recovery from a mental health disorder. This message was communicated to my parents Jane and Frank Guttman when I was an […]
Who we are now, who we were back then, and who we will become one day is a journey marked with fear, etched with courage, driven by strength, and laden with every emotion available in our affective spectrum intersecting with the multiplicity of experiences of what will hopefully […]
In April of that Spring, I was not only receiving assistance through the disabilities office on campus, I was also speaking at their ceremony and reception for graduating students.
Citing and awarding merit for people beleiving in my recovery.
My parents have been there during the darkest moments of my recovery and during the most triumphant. From the very beginning, my parents have been present with me in my health and healing, and if my prayers are answered,they will be with me until the very end. My […]
When you have a preexisting label, “baggage”, and a mental health diagnosis, there is no question dating becomes more complicated than healthy courting. There are several reasons why finding a partner is more difficult when you are carrying a mental health diagnosis. Several questions immediately come to mind, […]
I was an English major in college. Like many students studying language, I loved words, meaning-making, and using rhetoric to both dazzle and re-orient my listener to whatever I was spitting out of my mouth. Indeed, like most students, and English majors, I loved buzzwords, and the word-of-the […]
There is nothing to do except pace the hallway and swallow pills in a psych hospital. So I decided to speak with my peers. Inside the Community “So, how did you get here?” I asked an unsuspecting peer on the ward. He was around my age and appeared […]
There are a lot of articles out there all over the internet, newspapers, and mental health forums talking about the increasing violence in the community stemming from inadequate mental health awareness, access to treatment, and laws surrounding forced treatment. Even more abundant is writing on people with severe […]
We all talk about ourselves to other people in our lives. We talk about the day-to-day bullshit, the victories, however small, the good, the bad; all of it. As a therapist, peer, disability rights advocate, and just plain people person, I love talking to people about just about […]
This is the 100th article posted on Mental Health Affairs. All of us at Mental Health Affairs have aimed to bring readers the most critical and rigorous analytical commentary on the status of medicine, psychiatry, social work, psychology, and allied fields intersecting with mental health care today in […]
Most people do not realize that there is no such thing as high-functioning.
This following presentation is the long-overdue plan and proposal to the office of mental health to shutdown the state psychiatric centers and discharge all remaining patients to the community
In the throws of madness I have found some form of peace to hold on to as an anchor in discovering my innermost serenity. Only in the very end of my tormented nights was I unable to identify a technique to self-manage the chaos around me. By that […]
Background: I have been a consumer of mental health services for a litany of diagnoses including but not limited to NPD. With this said, this presentation is intended to explore existing definitions of NPD and offer additional insight into other possible treatment pathways for people seeking support and […]
In the summer of 2008, mid-July, I was ready for discharge from Binghamton State Psychiatric Center. Of course, readiness for discharge from a state hospital by no means signals the completion of the healing process, but it does set the stage for what would become a decade of […]
Symptom Activation Crossing into Broome County New York my vehicle was immediately pulled over by a state trooper. The trooper insisted that a car was weaving in and out of traffic in the vicinity I was driving. While he issued me no ticket, he followed me all the […]
The worst thing in the world is to have had the opportunity to fix or resolve a problem and to sit on one’s hands or let the chance pass us by without taking action. While some issues take us by surprise, e.g. breakthrough symptoms, new symptoms, or unexpected […]
There is no question that food is apart of our identity. What we eat, how, when, where, and if we eat a particular food speaks to our culture, ethnicity, history, and relationship with food. People with a mental health diagnosis are no exception. & yet, in hospitals, specifically […]
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