Recently I read a great article on the use of brand names when referring to drugs. The author, a doctor, decries the practice and says doctors should use the name of the drug rather than the brand name. The brand name of the drug, after all, was chosen by a marketer and a focus group and is really just advertising for the drug. The only trouble is, patients don't know, or can't remember, the actual names for drugs.

If you’re in treatment for depression and have ever mentioned a desire to die, you’ve probably heard these questions: How would you commit suicide? Have you make a plan to commit suicide? And others. So a commenter recently mentioned that this is just a way of “covering their backs,” and “. . . if I were serious about killing myself and had made a plan, why on earth would I tell them?” This is a logical question, but an uninformed one. In studies, we know that people who attempt suicide do reach out for help and do not really want to die.

Common messages spread by certain special interest groups are that “mental illness doesn’t exist” and “there is no biological evidence for mental illness.” It’s not surprising I take great exception with these claims. So do most doctors. But the brain is an extremely complex organ and refuting the above notions is hard. It’s not a two-word response. So, I’m going to attempt to give a two-part overview, in plain English, of some of the research around the biology of major depressive disorder according to a meta-analysis done in 2010 (see below).

It's tempting to think that because we read a list of symptoms for a mental illness, we can diagnose ourselves. We might think that taking a self-test online indicates the presence of an illness, or lack thereof. These things, however, are simply not the case.

I recently received a comment regarding bipolar medication, its development and the mental health care system in general. The commenter accuses the mental health community of being corrupt and asks, “Why are we forced to take such bad bipolar medicines?”

Alternative treatments for bipolar disorder, and any mental illness, abound. People will advise you to do anything from cut gluten out of your diet, to take an herbal cocktail to cleans your aura. I, myself, have seen a few alternative health care practitioners and tried a few of their treatments. And while I didn't personally find any benefit, and I don't find most of these treatments credible, if you are going to try a bipolar treatment outside of medicine, there is one major rule to follow.

Those of you who follow me may have gleaned that I've been having trouble getting a psychiatrist. Basically, I was finally allowed to see one and she threw up her hands, told me to give up and that I was never going to get any better. This is one of the worst things I have ever been told, and personally, I think is unacceptable on pretty much every level. However, yesterday I managed to see someone new, and this poses its own challenges.

I mentioned in my last post how it is the best of times and the worst of times for mental illness and treatment education. There are no shortage of online sources of mental illness information: websites, discussion groups, blogs, news, self-assessment tests and everything else in between. It's as if we can diagnose ourselves and pick our own treatment all without leaving the warmth of our laptop on our thighs. But the anonymity of the internet means that everyone you meet might just be a 12-year-old girl with a big vocabulary and no idea what she's talking about. So just who are you supposed to trust for mental illness information?

One night in 2007, I started a new antipsychotic. It was to be taken at dinner time. I did as told and took it at the universal dinner time of 6 pm. By 7 pm, I had mostly lost touch with reality. I was suddenly so tired that my eyes wouldn’t open but I was far too anxious, scared and twitchy to go to sleep. I felt incredibly ill. I was frantic, terrified and panicked. I was thrashing in a sharp, steel cage between sleep and wake with no way out. I cannot express to you the horror of that night. Bipolar medication side effects suck.

I am one of the people who hate to see their doctor. If it were up to me, I would never go. (OK, it is up to me, but it doesn't feel like it.) It's not that I have a bad doctor, or a mean doctor, it's just that nothing good ever happens there; so why would I go?