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Making Art Online

May 25, 2018 in LINKS

Sometimes it can be nice to distract yourself with something fun you can create!

Weavesilk is a site that allows you to make symmetrical art easily with only a mouse.

Screen Shot 2018-05-25 at 10.46.33 AMHere is a drawing I did just now with the trackpad on my laptop. What do you think it looks like—a cat, or a jellyfish, or a spaceship?

Some tips:

  • Once at the site, click “Draw something”
  • In the upper left hand corner, there is a blue dot. However over it—it should say ‘controls’
  • Click on that—it will show 7 colors, and you can change the color you are working with by clicking on the color you want
  • You can also mix colors, by holding onto color with your mouse and dragging it to another dot of color
  • You can also play with the bar labeled “rotational symmetry,” and turn the ‘mirror across center’ and ‘spiral towards center’ on or off
  • Draw by clicking in the center and moving your mouse
  • Hit space to clear the page, and z to undo

What other sites do you like to use when you need a distraction? Let us know in the comments!

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Stories From A Woman Who Got Mental Health Help Early

May 24, 2018 in Educate Yourself, Social Media Guide

Now age 40, New Orleans native and current Pittsburgh resident K. Rose Quayle was first committed to a mental hospital at the age of 15 for Bipolar II and an eating disorder. She spent her teens trying to control her mental illness through various medications, and by the time she got to her 30s, her illnesses had stopped responding to medications, so she decided to try electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).

quayle

K. Rose Quayle sitting on the right during the Q&A.

Last year she released a self-published book called Look Left, Walk Green: A Shocking Tale of Losing the Past and Choosing to Gain the Future, which she says she hopes will serve as a guidebook to various mental health treatments, especially ECT—one of the most feared and stigmatized treatments, and one of the least understood. She spoke about her experiences last night at the National Association of Mental Illness (NAMI) Keystone Pennsylvania event series “Stories that Heal” at City of Asylum in Pittsburgh.

“ECT is being used more, but a lot of people don’t know what to expect afterward,” said Quayle, who had 15 treatments eight years ago. Her book is organized in three sections: what it feels like to have ECT; the mechanics and physiology of the treatment; and the history of ECT and how the media and medical establishment have represented it.

ECT stopped her depression, she said. But she experienced significant side effects, one of the most persistent being memory loss. She didn’t remember who her friends were, and her husband would tell her to say hi to friends they ran into on the street. “I didn’t remember what my own clothes looked like,” she said, “so a couple of times I accused my husband of cheating on me because I saw all these clothes in my bedroom that I didn’t know were mine!”

She said her husband showed great patience with the slow pace of her recovery. She stressed the importance of asking for help. Even after all the years that she had sought treatment for bipolar disorder, when the severe side effects of ECT showed up, she said, “I didn’t want to ask the doctors for help because of the stigma.” So that’s how persistent stigma still is—but she moved through her fear and asked for help anyway, from doctors and from friends.

“True friends will come toward you in situations like this,” she said.

She said her treatment has changed her character. “It has made me more empathetic and willing to reach out to others,” she said.

35169991Follow Rose on Instagram @lookleftwalkgreen and on Twitter @LookLWG.

The next event in the “Stories that Heal” reading series is Lindsey Smith, author of Eat Your Feelings: The Food Mood Girl’s Guide to Transforming Your Emotional Eating. You can reserve your seat here.

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Is Depression Something You Can Control?

May 23, 2018 in Educate Yourself

brainIs depression something you can control?

Or are there actual changes in the brain that cause it that are beyond our control?

Research studies show that when someone is depressed, we can see many changes in the brain.

Of course, the brain is a super complex organ, and science is still only scratching the surface of everything there is to know about it. People who have depression can have different symptoms, different causes, and different factors that contribute to their symptoms.

It’s important to know that even though we don’t understand everything about the causes of depression, we do know something about what treatments can help. And if one treatment doesn’t work for you, there may be another one that will, so don’t give up trying to find help! You and your body and mind are very special and unique—so something that worked or didn’t work for someone else will probably work differently for you.

Depression probably has a combination of different causes:

  • Gene-environment interactions: Your brain and your genes can change based on what you are exposed to in your environment. Changes in genes based on environmental changes are called “epigenetics,” and they prove that, as we’ve written in a previous blog, our genes are not set in stone. And we can see big differences among people in their emotional/psychological responses to environmental factors. For example, some people’s anxiety skyrockets if they wreck their cars, while other people don’t have that response.
  • Endocrine system, otherwise known as hormones: Some people’s moods fluctuate with changes in their hormone levels. Hormones are neurotransmitters that help different parts of your body communicate with each other. An example of fluctuating hormones is premenstrual syndrome (PMS)—some girls’ moods change with hormonal changes, and others’ don’t.
  • Immune system: Stress and depression can cause your immune system—the part of your body that fights infections—to get weaker. And vice versa: some chronic illnesses can increase depressive feelings.
  • Neuroplasticity: Scientists talk about the brain being “plastic,” meaning the connections between neurons can change over time. In previous eras, we thought the brain’s electrical system was hard-wired. Now we know that its wiring can change based on genetics, environment, hormones, the immune system, and and medical and psychological treatments.

All of this means there are ways to get better!!

References: Medscape;  Nature

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Watch for Symptoms!

May 22, 2018 in Educate Yourself

depressionAre you or any of your friends struggling with symptoms of depression? Are you confused as to why you feel like you’ve fallen down into a big deep pit?

Many teenagers find themselves in very low places and often wonder how they arrived there. The good news is for some more common mental illnesses like depression and anxiety, there are signs and symptoms that we can become aware of and look out for in ourselves and in others we care about.

The key to recovery is developing awareness and becoming knowledgeable enough to be able to point out signs that don’t seem right—this can possibly prevent suffering and/or catch a problem before it gets worse.

Psychiatry.org lists some signs that something might be up.

  • Withdrawal—loss of interest in others
  • Drop in functioning—quitting sports, tanking in school, or difficulty performing familiar tasks
  • Problems thinking—difficulty with concentration, memory, or logical thought and speech
  • Increased sensitivity—to sights, sounds, smells or touch; avoidance of over-stimulating situations
  • Apathy—loss of initiative or desire to get involved
  • Feeling disconnected—a sense of unreality
  • Illogical thinking—unusual or exaggerated beliefs about personal powers to influence events; “magical” thinking typical of childhood in an adult
  • Nervousness—fear or suspiciousness of others
  • Sleep or appetite changes—sleeping or eating way more or less than usual
  • Mood changes—rapid or dramatic shifts in feelings

The good news is that help is out there! Treatment options are countless! There is therapy, medication, crisis hotlines and so much more. If you or a loved one is suffering, don’t wait. It’s better to get the help you need now than to wait until you feel worse.

Reaching out can be scary and daunting. It’s not an easy thing and takes much bravery. You might feel like no one will understand, but there are people who want to help you to make sure you are well taken care of. Talk to your parents or teachers and express how you feel. You’d be surprised!

What symptoms do you recognize from your own experiences? What are the ones that make it hardest to ask for help? What are the ones that feel most embarrassing? How did you get past that embarrassment and try to find help? Tell us in the comments. 

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Make A Sunshine File

May 21, 2018 in Be Positive

sunshine01For many years I have kept a file on my hard drive called “Raves.” This is a folder in which I have saved emails, letters, screenshots, and other files that have spoken positively about me and my work. The file has moved from computer to computer—and I also have hardcopies of notes in a file drawer.

Looking at the file now is like opening a box of sunshine. It helps me understand the good that I’ve tried to do in the world, and it reminds me to be positive about life even when life puts stones in the road.

(There’s a great song called “Stones in the Road,” you can listen below! It talks about how the stones can look like diamonds—depending on how we look at them. And how going home helps us stay balanced—”going home” can mean coming home to ourselves.)

You can keep a Sunshine File, and it can help you switch from focusing on negative aspects of life to focusing on the positive. Your collection could be a file like mine with nice notes from colleagues, strangers, friends and family. It could be a special box of messages or quotations that you collect and look at from time to time. It could be a drawer in your bedroom where you keep comforting and uplifting items like a pillow full of lavender buds, a scented candle, glow-sticks, your favorite tea, or notecards on which you can write sunshiney messages to your friends or family and pass along the light.

On another note, since spring is here, you can also go outside and get some actual sunshine, which is so good not just for our bodies but also for our minds. Sunlight can actually counter depression!

What kinds of positive messages or items have you collected? How does virtual or real sunlight affect your mood and attitude? Let us know in the comments.

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Getting Help: Where to Start

May 18, 2018 in LINKS

singlestepMental health problems don’t only affect adults. Children, teens and young adults can have mental health problems, too. In fact, three out of four people with mental health problems showed signs before they were 24 years old!

A nice place to start when looking to start a conversation about mental health and mental illness is the site “For Young People Looking for Help” at MentalHealth.gov. Check it out!

Did you find the website to be helpful? Do you think you could start a conversation better now that you have this information? What makes a good conversation starter? 

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Back from the Bluez: Behavioral Strategies that Manage Depression

May 11, 2018 in LINKS

slacklining01

Slacklining is popular among the kids in the parks in our city, and it’s one way to get your body moving and build both physical and emotional resilience.

Depressive symptoms can make people feel tired, even first thing in the morning when they wake up. They may also feel a lack of energy and motivation—so all the activities of work and fun begin to pile up, undone. When they look at their undone work and all the fun they’ve missed, they can feel sad and overwhelmed, leading to a spiral of feelings of guilt, uselessness, and failure. And so they miss out on even more work and more fun, and the cycle perpetuates itself.

One way to break out of this cycle is just beginning to increase activity levels, bit by bit.

But when you’re overwhelmed and have so much to catch up on, where do you even start?

The Center for Clinical Interventions, an office in Western Australia that creates and disseminates information for people with mental health challenges, has developed a bunch of links to help with this problem.

For example, their Behavioral Strategies for Managing Depression includes a list of 185 ideas about pleasurable activities that someone could do! Check these out:

  • planning: thinking about planning a day’s activities
  • exercising: going ice skating, roller skating/blading, playing tennis, slacklining
  • making stuff: sketching, painting, writing, cooking
  • thinking: about your good qualities, you’re a person who can cope, and you have a lot more going for you than most people

Check out the list—it’s super long and has something for everyone.

runningWhen you’re feeling depressed, it’s hard to remember these activities are open to you. You have to plan fun and enjoyable activities into your life, and it’s this effort that can counter the feelings of depression.

The module includes a worksheet to help you track your activities and rate your depression, pleasant feelings, and sense of achievement before and after the activities. It also has a weekly schedule to help plan out daily responsibilities and pleasurable activities.

Setting reasonable goals for yourself in the beginning is important so it won’t feel like too much too soon. Start slow by adding just a few small activities a week. Then slowly increase the number of activities over time. Choosing to perform tasks that give you a sense of achievement or mastery will help you feel like you are starting to regain control over your life. Once you have a sense of achievement it may encourage you to do more.

This is just one of the Center for Clinical Interventions’ modules to help with behavioral health problems. Check out the full list here—it’s cool.

What are the fun, pleasurable, or rewarding activities you engage in to help counter your depression and boost your mood? Share your strategies with us!

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High Schoolers of “Stand Together” Talk about Social Media Stress

May 10, 2018 in Social Media Guide

IMG_2193

Just a few of the high school students who talked with us about healthy social media use.

Two days ago we ran a blog about Stand Together, a project to educate other students at their schools about the challenges of mental illness and substance use disorders, and to break the stigma of talking about mental health in ordinary conversation. That blog was about middle-schoolers. Today, we talked to the high-school students at their annual celebration of their program’s achievements at the Heinz History Center.

We talked to them about how social media throws their mental equilibrium off balance. And what strategies they employ to take care of themselves—and others.

What are the stresses they experience on social media?

Joking About Violence

“The worst is when people joke about school shootings,” one sophomore girl says, and her three friends nod. “If they don’t like a particular teacher, they’ll say, ‘That teacher is why people shoot up schools.'”

“And other people joke about hurting themselves or say it casually, like just saying it doesn’t matter,” another girl said.

“How do you respond?” we asked.

“I tell them straight up that it’s not right to talk like that,” the first girl said. “I say that those people who were in the shootings were really hurt, and that those things really happened, and you can’t joke about it—it’s not healthy.”

“And that if you really feel like you’re going to hurt yourself or someone else,” the second girl said, “that you need to talk to someone who can help—like, right away.”

“Where did you learn how to respond like this?” we asked.

They said they’d been taught in the Stand Together program.

Fear of Criticism

Another 16-year-old guy said it caused him a lot of stress when one person at his school decided to create an anonymous Instagram account and criticize people from behind that anonymity. He and some other students around him agreed that some students only post super-positive photos, “which is really misleading,” one student said.

So the guy made the decision to eliminate all his social media accounts.

“It was a little rough, because everyone around me uses social media,” he said. “But I now have a TON of time more than I had before, when I was wasting time on social.” He spends that time on activities that he says nurture him. And he can still keep in close touch with the friends he cares about through texting.

Deciding to Take Care of Oneself

A 17-year-old girl told the story of how, three years ago, she came down with symptoms of severe depression. One way she took care of herself at this time was to deactivate all her social media accounts. After getting therapy and medical treatment, she’s doing much better, and at the point where she thought she was ready to handle social media again, she bit by bit reactivated her accounts. “It’s just what I needed to do to take care of myself.”

IMG_2192Social Media as a Way to Support New Friends

Finally, another 16-year-old said she’d had positive experiences with social media. She has several friends that she met on one platform or another with whom she has become very good friends—and has even met them in real life a couple of times.

“It’s easier to talk about things when you’re not face-to-face,” she said. “If you love to write, like I do, you can really support someone by writing to them and showing how much you care.”

What stresses do you experience around social media? If you have given up your social accounts, how has that affected your life? Tell us in the comments!

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image of a therapy session shows a silhouette of a person laying in a chair with hands raised. next to them is a person with a notepad.

Nah—Therapy Is Not For Me (But Are You Sure?)

May 9, 2018 in Educate Yourself

therapy02Studies show when people have a bad experience with therapy it can make them have a bad attitude about therapy in general. Sometimes I tell my adolescent patients at my clinic that I think therapy could help them, and they tell me, “Nah—not for me.” I keep in mind, though, that if they had a bad therapy experience before, that response totally makes sense.

Here are a few examples you may relate to:

The first time you went, it wasn’t your decision.

Going to therapy can help with a lot of different problems you may have—but if you were made to go or it felt like it was a punishment versus a decision you made to become more healthy, you might have a negative attitude about it. My mom used to make me pick weeds in our driveway, and I kind of have a bad attitude about gardening! Even though a lot of people enjoy it.

The therapist and you did not seem to connect.

We know a big reason therapy works is the therapeutic alliance, which we wrote about in a prior post. If you feel like you didn’t connect with your first therapist—or especially if you didn’t feel like they cared about you, that might have been a tough experience for you. Telling someone your deepest thoughts makes you vulnerable and if it didn’t work the first time, maybe you don’t want to take that risk again.

Your parent was too involved.

Maybe you think therapy wasn’t helpful if your parent was always around. You couldn’t let yourself be honest with the therapist.

You felt betrayed.

If you received therapy as a child and the therapist was worried about abuse, that is something that they have to report to the state for your safety. But when you are a kid in the mix of it, sometimes you feel like your trust was betrayed. That can be hard to deal with.

The thing is—one bad experience does not mean the next one will be. And your experience as a young person or child may be different when you are older. There are things you can do to help make sure that your next therapy experience is a good one. We know therapy works and can get you to better mental health.

If you had a bad experience before, but want to try therapy again, try these ideas:

  • Make a list of the pros and cons about going to therapy—go over your list with someone you trust like a supportive adult or your primary care doctor and together, make a decision if this is a next best step for you
  • At the first session, tell your therapist what your expectations and hopes are from therapy
  • If you feel like you and your therapist don’t connect, ask for a referral to see someone else—therapists are used to this as everyone is different and sometimes certain personalities don’t click.
  • If your parent is involved, talk to them about what you expect out of therapy and how you’d like them to be involved. if they would like to be very involved, talk to your therapist about whether it would be a better idea to have a family therapist in addition to individual therapy.
  • At the first session, talk to your therapist about the limits of confidentiality. What do they always keep private? What if anything, are they not allowed to keep private?

What are some reasons you or others have had negative experiences with therapy? How have you managed to keep an open mind? Do you have tips to share with readers about making the next experience positive? Share with us in the comments.

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“Stand Together” Celebrates Another Successful Year

May 8, 2018 in Educate Yourself

IMG_2185Today dozens of middle school students gathered at the Pittsburgh Heinz History Center to share the results of a year’s work on Stand Together, a project to educate other students at their schools about the challenges of mental illness and substance use disorders, and to break the stigma of talking about mental health in ordinary conversation.

“I was in the program last year,” one 14-year-old student said, “and I came back this year because I learned so much that I just wanted to share it with other kids at my school.”

The program is coordinated by Allegheny County’s Office of Behavioral Health and is run by just three staff members. Stand Together has been so successful at breaking down isolation among students with anxiety, depression, ADHD and eating disorders—the four most common mental health problems among students today—that the program now has a waiting list of schools wanting to get in on the action.

Here are some of the ways students have learned to bring awareness and break stigma among their peers:

  • IMG_2183Food giveaways to students who learn certain facts about mental illness (e.g., one in four people will confront mental health problems during any given year)
  • Printing custom T-shirts to wear in school to show solidarity
  • Painting murals on school walls with positive messages to educate students and uplift them during the day
  • Organizing events to help students talk to other students they may not ordinarily talk with, to break isolation
  • Creating wristbands with the #standtogether hashtag and the message, “It’s okay not to be okay,” to foster acceptance

It was super inspiring to see so many students show such openness to talking about mental health and willingness to bring positive messages to their peers! Congratulations to Stand Together!

Have you ever advocated among your own peers at school to help break stigma and create more open dialogue about mental health? What kind of a challenge was that? Let us know in the comments!

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