Mental Illness in the Family: HealthyPlace Mental Health Newsletter

HealthyPlace Mental Health Newsletter

Here's what's happening on the HealthyPlace site this week:

• Mental Illness in the Family
• Mental Health Experiences
• Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans
• From HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs
• Your Thoughts: From the HealthyPlace Forums and Chat
• Mental Illness and Relationships
• How Do You Prevent Suicide?
• Coaching Clarity To Students With Back-To-School Blinders

Mental Illness in the Family

Many parents talk about being unprepared when mental illness strikes. A few years later, they're worn out. Randye Kaye, author of the HealthyPlace blog, Mental Illness in the Family, is very familiar with that scenario. She discusses it in her new book: Ben Behind His Voices: One Family's Journey from the Chaos of Schizophrenia to Hope. Don't let the "Schizophrenia" in the title deter you from reading the book. It's very helpful for any family dealing with a serious mental illness.

We asked Randye: Having a teenage, now adult son with schizophrenia, what are the top 2-3 things, internal or external, that were difficult to deal with over last 8 years?

"Externally, the hardest thing was getting the correct diagnosis for Ben - or, even more shamefully perhaps, finding a professional educated enough in the major mental illnesses to take Ben's symptoms seriously. Then, internally, there was the emotional struggle to understand and accept what the diagnosis of schizophrenia would mean: for Ben, his future, and for our whole family. That leads to the third of the top three: how to help? We navigated maze after confusing maze - legal, governmental, bureaucratic and medical - to understand what we could do to help him in terms of benefits, services, housing, emotional support. Even now, answers are complicated and hard to uncover. We need a treasure map to find options and answers - and there is none."

Randye's latest blog post "Earlier Detection in Mental Illness: Possible?" notes that more money is spent on researching tooth decay than mental illness. To that, many on the HealthyPlace Twitter channel responded: "that's crushing!"

Mental Health Experiences

Share your thoughts/experiences with any mental health subject, or respond to other people's audio posts, by calling our toll-free number (1-888-883-8045).

You can listen to what other people are saying by clicking on the gray title bars inside the widgets located on the "Sharing Your Mental Health Experiences" homepage, the HealthyPlace homepage, and the HealthyPlace Support Network homepage.

If you have any questions, write us at: info AT healthyplace.com

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Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans

Here are the top 4 mental health articles HealthyPlace Facebook fans are recommending you read:

1. Depression Is Not Sadness
2. Mood Minder® from Kronko – Forecasting Emotional Weather | Funny in the Head
3. Warning Signs of Trauma Related Stress
4. Videos on Narcissism and Other Psychiatric Disorders

If you're not already, I hope you'll join us/like us on Facebook too. There are a lot of wonderful, supportive people there.

From HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs

Please take a moment to welcome our newest blogger, Dani Zee. Dani's vlog (video blog), Mental Health for the Digital Generation, addresses mental health concerns facing young adults. In her first official video post listed below, she talks about a common misconception - something young adults often hear: "You don't have a mental illness. This is just part of growing up. You'll grow out of it."

Your comments and observations are welcomed.

• Mental Illness Does Not Discriminate by Age (Mental Health for the Digital Generation Vlog)
• Mood Minder® from Kronko – Forecasting Emotional Weather (Funny in the Head: A Mental Health Humor Blog)
• Recovering from Chronic Mental Illness (Recovering From Mental Illness Blog)
• It's Never the Doctor's (Psychiatrist's) Fault? (Breaking Bipolar Blog)
• The Breakthrough After the Break-Up (Relationships and Mental Illness Blog)
• Peer-to-Peer in Mental Illness: What Happens? (Mental Illness in the Family Blog)
• Physical and Verbal Violence (Verbal Abuse and Relationships Blog)
• Why Does Psychotherapy Work? Manage Anxiety (Treating Anxiety Blog)
• My Ongoing Struggle With Anorexia: "You Can Be Thin Again" (Surviving ED Blog)
• With Bipolar Child, New School Year Brings Back Old Concerns (Life with Bob: A Parenting Blog)
• Binge Drinking and Blackout Binge Eating (Debunking Addiction Blog)
• Depression as a Working Diagnosis (Depression Diaries Blog)
• Budget Cuts at State Mental Hospitals Are Inhumane (More Than Borderline Blog)
• Remission from Dissociative Identity Disorder? (Dissociative Living Blog)
• Thoughts on Taking Psychiatric Medication (video)
• Living with Anxiety: Emotional Health
• Psychotropic Medication as an Agent of Control
• Motive for Staying in Abusive Relationships
• Mental Health Terminology Demystified
• Please Stop Telling Me Everything Is Okay
• A Year of Dissociative Living

Feel free to share your thoughts and comments at the bottom of any blog post. And visit the mental health blogs homepage for the latest posts.

Your Thoughts: From the HealthyPlace Forums and Chat

From our Mental Health Forums, Brandie is asking for advice. She's having trouble in her marriage and is thinking that she should leave with her kids. "I'm a 31 year old mother of 3 beautiful kids. My trouble is my husband. He gets angry all the time and throws fits worse than our kids. He seems to have no motivation at all and I'm seriously thinking about leaving for my kids sake." Sign into the forums and share your thoughts and comments.

Join us on the HealthyPlace Mental Health Forums and Chat

You must be a registered HealthyPlace member. If you aren't already, it's free and takes less than 30 seconds. Just click the "register button" at the top of the page.

At the bottom of the forums page, you'll notice a chat bar (similar to facebook). You can chat with any registered member on the forums site.

We hope you'll be a frequent participant and share our support link with others who may benefit.

Mental Illness and Relationships

Our new relationships blogger, Deltra Coyne, joins us for a wide-ranging discussion on relationships and mental illness. We talk about sharing your diagnosis with others, losing friends over your mental illness, romantic relationships, what support means and more. Watch this week's HealthyPlace Mental Health TV Show. (Mental Illness and Relationships: It's Complicated - TV Show blog)

Other Recent HPTV Shows

• I Didn't Know I Had Major Depression
• Surviving A Long-Lasting Battle with Severe Depression
• Publicly Living with a Mental Illness

Coming in September on the HealthyPlace Mental Health TV Show

• How to Put Mindfulness to Work for You
• What Those Living with ADHD Just Don't Get
• How OCD Effects Relationships and Social Life When You're A Teen

If you would like to be a guest on the show or share your personal story in writing or via video, please write us at: producer AT healthyplace.com

For all previous HealthyPlace Mental Health TV archived shows.

How Do You Prevent Suicide?

Suicide prevention. People talk about it, but is preventing someone from committing suicide really possible? We discuss that with Robert Gebbia, Executive Director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. That's on this edition of the HealthyPlace Mental Health Radio Show. Listen to How Do You Prevent Suicide?.

Other Recent HealthyPlace Radio Shows

• How To Support an Adult Loved One with Mental Illness. Cindy Nelson has a sister with a serious mental illness, Schizophrenia. She says it's a delicate balance between being a caregiver and a sister.

Coaching Clarity To Students With Back-To-School Blinders

As a parent, it's important to teach our children to learn from their mistakes. With that in mind, The Parenting Coach, Dr. Steven Richfield, has some suggestions for helping our children not to repeat the same mistakes they made in school last year.

If you know of anyone who can benefit from this newsletter or the HealthyPlace.com site, I hope you'll pass this onto them. You can also share the newsletter on any social network (like facebook, stumbleupon, or digg) you belong to by clicking the links below. For updates throughout the week,

• follow HealthyPlace on Twitter or become a fan of HealthyPlace on Facebook.

back to: HealthyPlace.com Mental-Health Newsletter Index