Category Archives: Mental Health

Mar 23

AIDS: “It’s a Sin”/”How to Survive a Plague”

Posted on by

AIDS in the 1980’s is the backdrop for the five-part 2021 series It’s a Sin (HBO Max), a highly worthy viewing that’s realistically based on the experiences of a group of young friends as they become aware of the plague in London.

Kathryn VanArendonk, Vulture: “The show’s best quality, and the thing that saves It’s a Sin from being an unrelenting dirge, is that it refuses to slide into regret or underplay its characters’ joy.”

And Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune, called it “really funny and truly moving” and “the best thing I’ve seen this year.”

John Powers, NPR, sets it up:

The series begins with the coming together of five gay — or gay friendly —characters. There’s cocky, self-involved Ritchie (played by pop star Olly Alexander) who wants to be an actor. There’s campy Roscoe, who’s been booted from his home by his Nigerian Christian family and hooks up with a Conservative MP (Stephen Fry). There’s sturdy Ash Mukherjee, an attractive teacher, and the touchingly naive Colin, a young Welshman who works for a Savile Row tailor. Holding the house all together is Jill (Lydia West), another aspiring actor based on Davies’ real-life best friend.

Notably present also is Neil Patrick Harris, a sort of mentor to Colin.

Karina Shah, New Scientist, reminds us that AIDS isn’t just history:

The mortality rate from HIV is now lower with the development of preventative drugs, such as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), and antiretroviral therapy. But living with the devastating impacts of HIV or AIDS is the reality for millions of people, especially those living in low-income countries where therapies are hard to access.

It’s a Sin‘s favorable reviews are barely marred by minor criticisms here and there that mostly relate to certain characters getting short shrift. As it turns out, though, the creator had wanted three more episodes; they didn’t get the needed funding.

Compare this to the excellent 2012 documentary How to Survive a Plague, about AIDS hitting the U.S. and the activism that followed.

Named in critic Lisa Schwarzbaum‘s “10 Best Movies of 2012,” David France‘s documentary tells the story of both ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group), two coalitions responsible back in the day for pushing such organizations as the National Institutes of Health, the FDA, the drug companies, and the general medical establishment to do more regarding AIDS research and treatment.

The Story Via Review Excerpts

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: The film “begins in 1987, six years into the AIDS epidemic, when the group Act Up formed in Greenwich Village and proceeded to march on New York’s City Hall in an effort to shame Mayor Ed Koch for his lack of response to what was then known as the ‘gay plague.'”

Sara Stewart, The New York Post:

Featured ACT UP leaders include writer and agitator Larry Kramer; Peter Staley, a former closeted bond trader who went on to become one of the group’s most eloquent spokesmen; and Bob Rafsky, whose angry outburst at a speech by then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton evoked the now-famous phrase ‘I feel your pain.’
Video of protests, strategy meetings and the near-dead is interspersed with TV images of President George H.W. Bush merrily playing golf and Sen. Jesse Helms denouncing the ‘revolting’ victims for not keeping their ‘sodomy’-related problems to themselves. (In one of their more lighthearted actions, the group memorably unfurled a giant condom over Helms’ house.)

Amy Biancolli, San Francisco Chronicle: “When it’s over, this documentary lingers as a testament to extraordinary human bravery. It stands as one of the most heartbreaking and suspenseful sagas of the year.”

Mar 21

Narcissism As a Trait Versus Disorder

Posted on by

Several notable books take on the type of narcissism that doesn’t necessarily qualify as a personality disorder but is actually a relatively common personality trait in its own right.

I. The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement (2009) by Drs. Jean M. Twenge, W. Keith Campbell 

Twenge: “Narcissism is an inflated sense of self. It is thinking that you are better than you actually are. It is a complicated trait with lots of different correlates to it, but it does include things like seeking fame, attention, vanity, and so on. However, its main characteristic is its self-centeredness.”

The authors address such questions as, how is narcissism not just high self-esteem? One main difference between a diagnosable narcissist and someone with narcissistic traits, they say, is that a narcissist lacks the ability or interest in nurturing his or her relationships.

Other “signs of narcissism” according to Twenge:

  • Overconfidence
  • Being delusional about one’s own greatness
  • Over-optimism
  • Taking too many risks
  • An inflated, unrealistic sense of self
  • Alienation from other people
  • Entitlement, the expectation of having things handed to you without much effort
  • Not caring about others.

II. Rethinking Narcissism: The Bad–and Surprising Good–About Feeling Special (2015) by Craig Malkin

Rethinking Narcissism is about de-pathologizing the term. “The truth is,” states the book blurb, “that narcissists (all of us) fall on a spectrum somewhere between utter selflessness on the one side, and arrogance and grandiosity on the other. A healthy middle exhibits a strong sense of self. On the far end lies sociopathy.”

Although Malkin has a self-test on his website, psychologist Leon F. Seltzer (Psychology Today) says the longer book version of Malkin’s test is “alone worth the price of the book.”

If you’d like a deeper sense of Malkin’s views on related topics, the following articles will help:

III. Everyday Narcissism: Yours, Mine, and Ours by Nancy Van Dyken (September 12, 2017)

In an interview with Psychology Today, author Van Dyken defines “everyday narcissism” as “a low-grade, garden-variety form of narcissism that most of us struggle with, often on a daily basis.” Reports Publishers Weekly, “everyday narcissism” includes “the resulting passivity, inability to discuss emotion, and self-denial” that arises from being taught certain myths from an early age.

These five myths have been typically handed down from one generation to another and are as follows:

  • We are responsible for—and have the power to control—how other people feel and behave.
  • Other people are responsible for—and have the power to control—the way we feel and behave.
  • The needs and wants of other people are more important than our own.
  • Following the rules is also more important than addressing our needs and feelings.
  • We are not lovable as we are; we can only become lovable through what we do and say.

One of Van Dyken’s various recommendations is to learn how to say no, which in her work as a therapist is “one of the hardest pieces of homework I give to people.” Her advice will go something like this: “I’d like you to say ‘no, that won’t work for me’ three times this week.” As she recently related to Mike Zimmerman, tonic.vice.com, “It might take someone 3 months to learn how to do that.”

Mar 14

ACES (Adverse Childhood Experiences)

Posted on by

At least two books, described below, highlight the effects that ACES (adverse childhood experiences) can have on your life.

Another resource that can be utilized right now is the ACES quiz, which will give you an idea of where you stand. Click on the link.

I. Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal (2015) by Donna Jackson Nakazawa

For detailed info see my previous post regarding this book. Below are selected quotes.

Simply living with a parent who puts you down and humiliates you, or who is alcoholic or depressed, can leave you with a profoundly hurtful ACE footprint and alter your brain and immunologic functioning for life.

Recognizing that chronic childhood stress leads to chronic adult illness and relationship challenges can be enormously freeing. If you have been wondering why you’ve been struggling a little too hard for a little too long with your emotional and physical well-being—feeling as if you’ve been swimming against some invisible current that never ceases—this aha can come as a welcome relief. Finally, you can see the current. And you see how it’s been working steadily against you all of your life.

…(A)s Bernie Siegel, MD, puts it, quite simply, after half a century of practicing medicine, “I have become convinced that our number-one public health problem is our childhood.”

II. The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity (2018) by Nadine Burke Harris

Some ACEs statistics courtesy of interviews with Harris:

Two-thirds of Americans have been exposed to one significant adverse childhood experience, and between 13 and 17 percent have been exposed to four or more. We know that being exposed to high doses of childhood adversity dramatically increases the risk for seven of the 10 leading causes of death in the United States. (New York Times)

An individual with four or more ACEs is 10 times more likely to be an IV drug user as someone with no ACEs. (New York Times)

…For depression, it was 4.5 times. For suicidality, it was 12 times. (NPR)

As explained in her NPR interview, how you might envision the physiological effects of toxic stress:

Well, imagine you’re walking in the forest, and you see a bear. Immediately, your hypothalamus sends a signal to your pituitary, which sends a signal to your adrenal gland that says, release stress hormones adrenaline, cortisol. And so your heart starts to pound. Your pupils dilate. Your airways open up. And you are ready to either fight that bear or run from the bear. And that is wonderful if you’re in a forest, and there’s a bear. But the problem is what happens when the bear comes home every night. And this system is activated over and over and over again.

What can help to offset ACEs? New York Times interview excerpt:

One of the key ingredients for keeping the body’s stress response out of the toxic stress zone is the presence of a healthy buffering caregiver…We also know that if a caregiver is able to self-regulate, their kids have much better outcomes. Good old-fashioned mental health care really does help. In research studies, certain types of interventions, including child-parent psychotherapy, can help to normalize cortisol levels and get the body’s stress response back on track.

Regular physical exercise, a healthy dose of sleep, and meditation are suggested, among other things, for adults dealing with the effects of their ACES.

Mar 06

“It’s OK That You’re Not OK”: Megan Devine

Posted on by

Therapist Megan Devine, author of It’s OK That You’re Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn’t Understand (2017), offers on her Refuge in Grief  website: “If your life has exploded into a million little bits, you don’t need platitudes. You don’t need cheerleading. You don’t need to be told this all happened for a reason. You certainly don’t need to be told that you needed your pain in order to learn something about life.”

What do you need instead (besides her book)? Perhaps her website—Refuge in Grief: Grief Support That Doesn’t Suck. The site has great info, including posts onhelping a grieving friend and surviving your own grief.

Devine lost her male partner to an accidental drowning when he was 39. Contrary to what our culture sometimes demands, she notes, “Grief no more needs a solution than love needs a solution.” Also, “Some things cannot be fixed. They can only be carried.”

Other selected quotes about grief from It’s OK that You’re Not OK:

The reality of grief is far different from what others see from the outside. There is pain in this world that you can’t be cheered out of. You don’t need solutions. You don’t need to move on from your grief. You need someone to see your grief, to acknowledge it. You need someone to hold your hands while you stand there in blinking horror, staring at the hole that was your life. Some things cannot be fixed. They can only be carried.

There is not a reason for everything. Not every loss can be transformed into something useful. Things happen that do not have a silver lining.

When you try to take someone’s pain away from them, you don’t make it better. You just tell them it’s not OK to talk about their pain.

Acknowledgment–being seen and heard and witnessed inside the truth about one’s own life–is the only real medicine of grief.

If you can’t tell your story to another human, find another way: journal, paint, make your grief into a graphic novel with a very dark storyline. Or go out to the woods and tell the trees. It is an immense relief to be able to tell your story without someone trying to fix it. The trees will not ask, “How are you really?” and the wind doesn’t care if you cry.

When someone you love dies, you don’t just lose them in the present or in the past. You lose the future you should have had, and might have had, with them. They are missing from all the life that was to be.

True comfort in grief is in acknowledging the pain, not in trying to make it go away. Companionship, not correction, is the way forward.

Mar 01

“Modern Loss” and How to Cope

Posted on by

People often bemoan the lack of manuals for the hard and complicated stuff like grief. Well, The Modern Loss Handbook: An Interactive Guide to Moving Through Grief and Building Your Resilience (2022) by Rebecca Soffer might convince those who’ve experienced loss there actually is a guidebook, one that’s been highly praised as useful, candid, humorous, and real.

For starters, check out the comprehensive Modern Loss website. Headings include Types of Loss, Hot Topics, and Advice.

Prior to the handbook we also had Modern Loss: Candid Conversation About Grief. Beginners Welcome (2018) by Soffer and Gabrielle Birkner. In addition to contributions from themselves, the authors provide pieces from 40 others.

Important info about Sofer and Birkner (Shondaland): “Both women lost their parents when they were young adults: Birkner’s father and stepmother were murdered when she was 24; Soffer’s mother and father died four years apart when she was in her early 30s. The two women, both writers, found space for their grief, rage, and confusion in a weekly gathering of other young women who’d lost their parents (aptly named ‘Women with Dead Parents’). Six years after their first meeting, Soffer and Birkner took that community worldwide with their online publication Modern Loss, allowing even more people to share their stories and find help in navigating what it’s like to be the one left behind after a death.”

Birkner had received (per her Shondaland interview) paradoxical pieces of advice regarding her own healing. Both turned out to be helpful to her process.

One was: Don’t expect too much from yourself. My friend told me, ‘Get up, brush your teeth, and be proud of yourself for doing it. Everything else is icing: bills, laundry, writing, whatever. Icing.’ And my grandmother, who’s my father’s mother, who had just lost her son, said to me, ‘You don’t have to expect too little of yourself.’ My friend gave me permission to be kind to myself, to pace myself, to assess where I am, to breathe, to be proud of getting up every morning. My grandma gave me permission to forge ahead in spite of everything, to keep my foot on the pedal at work and to forge ahead in my career.

An essential New York Times article by the authors offers a modern glossary reflecting the idea that “Loss is messy, melancholic and often darkly hilarious. It also lingers forever.”

Finally, some pithy quotes from Modern Loss: Candid Conversations:

Everyone will lose somebody they love. And I don’t say that as a threat, I say it as a fact.

Our grief can’t just be buried alongside the ones we love. Even years after our losses, we still have moments of gut-wrenching sadness.

Grief alters us, body and mind, by splitting us in two. It is the only way to live with it and not be destroyed by it.