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Articles by Mental Hellth
I Undiagnosed Myself to Get Better
Maddie Rose (they/them) is a Philadelphia-based writer, organizer, disability liberationist and thinker of crazy thoughts. Diagnosis is the holy grail of health treatment. A nightmarish and expensive search that we dream can grant powers like answers to lifelong questions, medication and a plan for treatment.
The Crisis of Nursing Under Capitalism
The Crisis of Nursing Under Capitalism An RN on mopping up the mess caused by a sick society, and using drugs to cope with the stress. An anonymous RN who has worked at a large hospital in the Deep South for three years on how the medical system’s problems extend way beyond Covid.
Selling Rehab
A rehab industry insider who worked at rehabs, in consulting for families who were sending their loved ones to drug programs, and at halfway houses for nearly two decades dishes on the for-profit, multi-billion dollar business. [This interview has been edited and condensed] Like a lot of folks who wind up working in treatment, I struggled with drugs first. I wound up in Hazelden in 2003. When I was a young adult, alcohol and drugs always felt like a warm hug.
Is Dream Work a Corrupted Form of Psychology?
Bonjour, and welcome to the latest Link Drop. We got depressing stuff about Covid, hopeful stuff about birds, and everything in between. So step right up and get your dose of links!
Medicating Normal: Why so Many of Us Are on Drugs
Zachary Siegel is a journalist focusing on drugs and runs the Substack Substance. “Medicating Normal,” a new PBS documentary about the profit-driven dark side of psychiatric medicine, opens with a bracing scene. “This all started off with a bad relationship and some test anxiety and stress in grad school,” Dave says, staring at the camera with a deadpanned, flattened affect. “And now I’m a totally dysfunctional, highly suicidal individual.
Capitalism, Fascism and Mental Health
Natasha Lennard is a professor of critical journalism and the author of Being Numerous: Essays on Non-Fascist Life. We talked about her own mental health struggles, how she’s come to accept medication even as she accepts she’ll never understand how it works, and the psychology of capitalism and fascism. On being diagnosed bipolar I grew up in London, and had quite a lot of mental health struggles in my biological family. Problems with drinking, gambling, all of the fun stuff.
Seeking Out Pain On Purpose
Leigh Cowart is a science journalist and the author of the recently-published Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose. The book includes interviews with a variety of pain-seekers and pain scientists, from BDSM experts to marathon runners, and attempts to answer the question of why we seek out pain, and our culture of shame around our desire for it. I was a ballet dancer for 20 years and then I left ballet and all that was left with me at that point was rage.
Can MRIs See Our Thoughts? (Not Really)
Hi Everyone, Hope you’re having a good Weird-Week-Between-Christmas-and-New-Year. I present to you, links! -The New Yorker does a deep dive on the latest fMRI technology—scientists attempting to physically see our thoughts, notice patterns of thinking and categorize them. But, as is true with so much mainstream media, the piece is too uncritical of this type of research.
Low Hum // High Hum
IDK if you heard, but Covid is bad again. And with it has come the return of Covid anxiety, Covid despair, anger at our government for doing nothing. I have regressed—I feel emotionally stunned, and thus all I can do is listen to Nü Metal (Seether especially for some reason (“My philosophy is things are just as wrong as they seem // I believe it's gonna end this way // Atrocity”)) on high volume and distract myself with video games (Cities: Skylines right now).
Mindfulness at the End of the World
This story is by Adam Willems, a Seattle-based freelance writer/reporter covering religion and technology. Mindfulness has become mainstream: meditation apps proliferate on our phones; influencers encourage us to take five minutes to breathe and let go of our days. But to philosopher Sahanika Ratnayake, mindfulness is a silent epistemic threat.
From Victim of the Mental Health System to Practitioner
Gwen, is a 25 year old counselor at a food pantry in Chicago. She talked to me about her negative experiences with counseling and psychiatry, and why, despite all those negative experiences, she decided to work in the mental health field. As I grew up I had a lot of anxiety and a lot of issues with anger, and so I eventually ended up in counseling when I was maybe 11 or 12, and started to be given a variety of diagnoses.
Exporting the American Brain
Book: Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche In the year 2000, the multibillion dollar prescription drug company GlaxoSmithKline invited dozens of academics and researchers to Japan, ostensibly to discuss their antidepressant Paxil. The guests were given first class tickets to the country, stays in five-star hotels, and treated like royalty.
Finding Joy in a Terrible World
Snooki, hero of pleasure. Rax King, the author of the recently-released Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer, believes in not judging yourself for what you find joy in. After a hard life in college, Rax found ways to experience joys without controlling herself, and, through her book, is hoping to encourage people to do the same. We talked about everything from her love of Snooki to recovering from severe mental illness, and how those things are connected.
The Terrible Rise of Terrible Therapy Apps
Hello! In today’s Link Drop: therapy apps are taking over the world, for better or worse (worse!), opioids are killing some people and helping others, therapists ponder how the fuck to deal with climate change, and more! Onward to the links! -BetterHelp, the online therapy corporation, has been partnering with celebrities to promote its services, leading to extremely tasteless and offensive incidents like Travis Scott offering a free month of therapy to people affected by the deaths at his...
Racialized Disorders
In the 1850’s, as enslaved people escaped their oppressors in the search of a better life, American surgeon Samuel Cartwright theorized in a medical journal that the slaves had mental disorders—either drapetomania, a belief that they were mentally equal to white people, or dysaesthesia aethiopis, a “rascality” that caused slaves to “disrespect” their master’s property.
Treatment Beyond Punishment
Logan is a 21-year-old Black, trans man from the Bronx. He talked to me about involuntary psychiatric treatment, the ineffectiveness of our mental health care system, and finding a therapist that allowed him to actually start exploring himself and his past. [This interview has been edited and condensed] I grew up in New York City and went to a specialized…
"Psychoanalysis can help us dream of things outside of capitalism."
Britt Edelen is a PhD student at Duke University in the Department of English, with a focus on psychoanalysis. He talked to me about the radical uses of psychoanalysis, and how it can help us envision a completely different world. [This as-told-to has been edited and condensed] I’d read a lot of Freud in undergrad and got really interested in his theory o…
"Psychoanalysis can help us dream of things outside of capitalism."
THIS IS A FREE VERSION OF A PAID POST. TO READ THE REST, SUBSCRIBE Britt Edelen is a PhD student at Duke University in the Department of English, with a focus on psychoanalysis. He talked to me about the radical uses of psychoanalysis, and how it can help us envision a completely different world. [This as-told-to has been edited and condensed] I’d read a lot of Freud in undergrad and got really interested in his theory of self.
Normal Mushrooms Are Good for You Too
Hi everyone! Hope you’re doing well. As the fall gets colder and the days shorter, it’s important to get outside more, IMHO. Do it!! Leave the house!! You’ll feel better!! Anyway, here are this week’s links. Why do we seek out pain?: Davey Davis comes through with a review of a new book about the ways in which humans seek out painful experiences. The boo…
Grief, Unmedicated
Jack (a pseudonym) is a 20-something from New Jersey living in Japan. He talked to me about the death of his brother at a young age, getting on antidepressants, and eventually deciding to live life without them—learning to cope with grief unmedicated. [This as-told-to has been edited and condensed] Growing up in New Jersey, I think I had a pretty chi…
Making Space for Fun Under Capitalism
Kate Davis Jones is a novelist, jock, and occasional EMT based in Raleigh, NC. This is a free post. Most are not. Subscribe to read the rest of Mental Hellth. Three dolphins breached for a breath as I was standing atop a cliff overlooking the Pacific; their dorsal fins sluiced through the surface of the deep turquoise water.
Apple Wants to Tell You You're Depressed
Hi everyone, Today, I bring you stories of technological dystopia. It’s your latest Link Drop. Social media really is that bad for you: Facebook has been conducting research on itself for three years to see whether Instagram (which it owns) negatively affects the mental health of teens. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, the research found that the platform neg…
Listening to Ketamine
A few months ago, I wrote a big feature about my experience with ketamine. And as part of the reporting process I heard all sorts of fascinating experiences from other people who’d used the drug. Here is an edited and condensed version of four of their stories, which cover everything from healing PTSD to finding a new reality “shimmering” above our own. …
DANCE!! BUY SOMETHING!! ENERGY!!!!!!!! NOW!!
Recently, I have gone to bed most nights not anxious, not panicking, but filled with energy. I stare at the ceiling. I scroll on my phone. I feel too awake. I am in some ways happy. I spend much of my time excited. This is partially because things are going well in my life—I am making progress on my gender stuff, work is going smoothly. I f…
How AA's Hardline Stance Ruins Relationships
Lula Fotis is a writer and producer living in Brooklyn trying to figure out what's next. You can find more of her writing and musings about navigating this beautiful hellscape of life at her free newsletter Next Right Thing. Early in 2021 I started to feel like alcohol was playing a larger role in my life than I wanted it to. I come from a long line of …
This is Not the End
This is a guest post by Ryan M. Moser, a writer and poet currently incarcerated in Florida. “At times it seems futile to search myself / for some future endeavor of consequence/ For the hour has passed...and the candlelight’s dim / I grieve for my last hope, once again.” I once met the most interesting man in the world. He wasn’t an adman for Dos Equis, or a retired travelogue writer.
How to Break Through Our Neoliberal Selves
Consider this idea for a moment: you are not your thoughts and feelings. This seems false on its surface. Most of us base our identity on what we think and feel, and if we aren’t them, then who are we? One perspective from social psychology is that we are learned, social beings, and the society around us introjects its values and language into our psych…
Twitter is a Casino, and We Are All Addicts
Hope you’re well. I’m currently trying to work through some grief and anger about global warming. With the floods in Louisiana and New York, it’s only natural to feel overwhelmed. But I’m attempting to not allow that overwhelm to turn into cynicism—I think that’s a protective mechanism that enables us to not feel how scary everything is.
The Current Crisis of Sexlessness
This is a guest post by Sophia Ioannou, who lives in Brooklyn. Betty Draper lies on her analyst’s couch. She lies on the couch; she lies. I don’t know why I’m here, she begins, then amends. She knows why she’s there but she’s nervous. Betty is sad, Betty cannot sleep, Betty’s hands shake, and her mother is dead. One might say that she knows a why, but not
Have We Jumped the Shark with Psychedelics?
In the spring of 2019 I ate shrooms for the first time, and had flashbacks for a year. For months, I’d be sitting in bed on my phone when suddenly the room would tilt about 15 degrees and darken, like the sun had passed behind a cloud. I felt scared, confused and unhinged, just like I’d felt that spring day in the pa…
The Often Racist, Pro-Capitalist Function of Diagnosis
The psychotherapist and author Jonathan Foiles believes we’ve lost all historicism and context when it comes to diagnosis. We see diagnoses as scientific fact as opposed to categories influenced by capitalism, racism, and other biases. He wrote (Mis)Diagnosed: How Bias Distorts Our Perception of Mental Health as a kind of corrective. The book encourages…
Stress Was Invented by Big Tobacco to Sell You Cigarettes
Paintings by Max Ernst Hi everyone, It’s been a while since I’ve done a Link Drop, and there’s been tons of fascinating articles coming out about mental health, technology, Big Pharma, and more. Generally, it does feel like we’re at a tipping point, mental health wise. The manic energy of the faux-post-pandemic has given way to a kind of collective acknow…
Organizing and fighting without dying
Most people who have spent enough time organizing know it can be a thankless job. The planet is on fire; millions of people don’t have their basic needs met, and are experiencing housing and food insecurity; a global pandemic has killed more than 4 million people worldwide; and fascism is on the rise. Everywhere, people are navigating how to survive eac…
Organizing and fighting without dying
This post is free, most are not. Please consider subscribing to support radically different views on mental health. Most people who have spent enough time organizing know it can be a thankless job. The planet is on fire; millions of people don’t have their basic needs met, and are experiencing housing and food insecurity; a global pandemic has killed more than 4 million people worldwide; and fascism is on the rise. Everywhere, people are navigating how to survive each day.
A Drug Memoir That Isn't Anti-Drug
Most drug memoirs follow a predictable narrative: the author loses their innocence after being introduced to drugs, they eventually hit a rock bottom, then they have a moment of clarity, often after going to rehab, and become 100 percent sober. The problem with these memoirs is that they paint a very inaccurate picture of how addiction and recovery ofte…
Going Beyond Diagnosis in East London
This is a guest post by Mina Hadi. Mina is a journalist and poet. A fierce advocate for mental health and human rights, she is an intersectional feminist and proud Muslim. She's written before for Amaliah Magazine and Lacuna Magazine. For the past eight years, I’ve accessed various mental health services, from cognitive behavioral therapy to talking ther…
Even Psychiatrists Hate the Chemical Imbalance Model
This is a guest post by Nigel Jaffe, who studies clinical psychology. He hopes to help save it from itself. THIS IS A FREE VERSION OF A PAID POST. TO READ THE REST, SUBSCRIBE Prescription drug ads are as predictable as they are pervasive. Their formula, deployed via print ads, TV commercials, and subway billboards, is simple.
Even Psychiatrists Hate the Chemical Imbalance Model
This is a guest post by Nigel Jaffe, who studies clinical psychology. He hopes to help save it from itself. Prescription drug ads are as predictable as they are pervasive. Their formula, deployed via print ads, TV commercials, and subway billboards, is simple. First, they call out a common emotional problem—irritability, worry, mental fatigue—before rep…
Life in the Fog
This is a guest post from Olivia Wojtkielewicz. I thought it was a problem with my eyes initially. One morning in January of my freshman year of college, I woke up in a fog. I had smoked weed the night before, like I did most nights, but this high felt different.. It was as if something came loose between my brain and my eyes that made everything in my vicinity have a completely different sense about it than it did the day (and my entire life) before.
Heroin Can Be Good for You
Dr. Carl Hart is a professor of neuroscience at Columbia University, and a casual heroin user. When the latter part of this bio was made public, the media freaked—viral stories from the New York Post and elsewhere spawned days worth of discourse online. Was it okay to promote the recreational use of heroin and other drugs? Would he get fired from Columb…
Emotional Intelligence Is a Scam
A few weeks ago, The New Yorker did a deep dive into the book Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, which came out 25 years ago. We, to an alarming degree, live in a world ushered in by that book, with corporations, psychologists, schools, and entire cottage industries devoted to the gospel of emotional intelligence.…
The Brutal Honesty of Old Prescription Drug Ads
Today, if you are prescribed a psychotropic medication, you’ll likely have to meet diagnostic criteria that place you in one or several of the hundreds of available disorders in the DSM-V. And, with hundreds of possible diagnoses, and hundreds of mental health meds being manufactured by prescription drug companies, the competition to ensure you chose th…
Get rid of your depressed friends!!!!!!
Happy Friday. Here’s a collection of links I found interesting this week (not necessarily from this week). Depression is an inflammatory disorder (maybe): A study of 86,000 people suggests that depression is linked to inflammation. It’s the largest study of its kind, and controlled for other factors like BMI, age, and alcohol use. About 31 percent …
Capitalist Realism Is Fake
I avoided reading Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? for years, even though I knew its arguments about mental health and capitalism would overlap with mine to a large degree. I was afraid of the book largely because Fisher’s work and his life hit too close to home. For someone to write about the societal causes of depression to t…
Give Up
A few months ago I saw a psychiatrist for the first time in years. My moods felt all over the place. The pandemic had fried my ability to concentrate. Reading a book was difficult. Writing was near-impossible. I was prescribed very low doses of Adderall and Abilify, a mood stabilizer. And both seemed to work very well. For the first time in my life I felt like I’d found psychiatric medications that really made a difference—something I was skeptical would ever happen.
"CBT is a band-aid on a broken leg"
Robin Craig is a Brighton-based PhD student writing on trans and disabled Shakespeare performance. He is also a freelance culture writer and has written for VICE, Refinery29, and Huck Magazine (forthcoming) on a variety of trans issues. In his spare time he writes Looking at Porn, a monthly Substack series on niche and taboo fetishes. We spoke about the …
"Psychology is the tool for correcting capitalism's contradictions"
Khadijah Diskin is a PhD researcher in critical psychology in London. We chatted about popular misunderstandings of psychology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis, starting with the idea that we know anything at all about the brain. [This as-told-to has been edited and condensed]. How I’ve come to think about the world is that people assume there are easy answ…
How Peer Support Can Move People Beyond Traditional Mental Healthcare
This is part two of a two-part interview with Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu. The first part is available here. Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu is a queer, disabled, autistic & mentally ill community organizer and graduate from Brown University. They’re the founder and executive director of Project LETS, an abolitionist project working to build non-carc…
How Peer Support Can Move People Beyond Traditional Mental Healthcare
This is part two of a two-part interview with Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu. The first part is available here. This is a free version of a paid post. Subscribe to read the full version. Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu is a queer, disabled, autistic & mentally ill community organizer and graduate from Brown University.
No Coping Mechanism Is Safe from Neoliberalism
Admittedly, the title and cover of McMindfulness leave much to be desired. Depicting a Buddha statue with Ronald McDonald hair and clown makeup scrawled atop, it could only be more Banksy if the title was written in the McDonald’s font (thankfully, it is not). The subtitle, however, is much more enticing, promising to tell the reader “how mindfulness be…
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