'Mental Health Blogs'

This post grew from yesterday's "Being Crazy Isn't What it Used to Be: Thankfully" (May 13, 2008).

That post started with, " 'Mental Health Blogs - Lets Link Up' / BlogCatalog discussion thread (started May 13, 2008)"

Today, I'm following up with a few micro-reviews of blogs that were cited in that discussion thread to date. The first two are mine.

Of this list, my recommendations for people looking for help are:

• "Grief Management"
• "Battling Depression"

Both appear to be serious and 'professional' at least in the sense of being as accurate and disciplined as possible. This is no criticism of the other blogs. They are what their authors intend them to be: personal blogs, with some relevance to the issue of mental health.

One more thing, before the micro-reviews. My experience with counseling and self-help mental health treatments has taught me that a person should be very careful about who they let get 'under the hood' of their mind. There are a wide variety of value systems and beliefs in the world. These are important, particularly when dealing with matters of the mind.

Finally! Micro-Reviews of 'Mental Health' Blogs, and Other Stuff

• "Through One Dad's Eye"
  "Raising a family and building websites in small town America"
  This blog qualifies as a 'mental health blog' because I take a prescription to control depression. I'm pretty sure I've got other clinkers in my thinker, too, but it was depression that got the doctor's attention.
  I don't talk about depression so much - but I think it may be instructive to see what someone who is crazy (according to the norms when I was growing up) can live, if not a normal life (that would be boring, IMHO), but at least an adequate one. Provided I stay on my 'happy pills,' that is.
  And be assured, I do. I forgot, once, and don't want that to happen again.
• "Narcissus-X"
  "A blog entirely devoted to the Narcissus-X blog."
  Narcissus-X is the pseudonym of a fictional (and thank goodness for that) angsty artist.
  My original idea for this blog was that it would be a blog about the blog: a sort of intellectual positive-feedback loop. Done strictly for laughs.
  Narcissus-X developed quickly into a sort of stereotyped version of wannabe artists and creative types I've run into.
  The material for Narcissus-X comes from a part of my mind that's dark and spooky - and not really intended for outsiders. I've joked that it's a place where I prefer to travel in pairs.
  Although it's a for-laughs blog, it's possible that some insights leak out here and there.
• "How Is Bradley?"
  "Just a guy sharing the wacky world of bipolar disorder, the humbling experience of getting in shape and some random thoughts sprinkled in."
  I did a post on this blog on Monday (" 'How is Bradley' - the Only Blog I've Seen With a Moodometer" (May 12, 2008). (This micro-review is copied from the earlier one, with recent posts added.)
  The most recent six posts are:
  • "Calm, Cool and Collected"
  • "Tigger Mania"
  • "Peanut Butter Will Be The Death Of Me"
  • "For Mom"
  • "I'll Have a Beer To Wash Down My Prozac, Please"
  • "Where Do I Go From Here?"
  The most recent post is a touching Mother's Day tribute - and one that's a bit off the 50th percentile. It starts:
  "It wasn't easy growing up in my household. I don't remember my dad at home much and moms moods were unpredictable.
  I'm not sure what was wrong with Mom mentally, but I know she was frequently depressed. Sometimes she'd lock herself in her bedroom for a week at a time. ..."
• "Grief Management"
  "GriefManagement.org was created to provide a safe and congenial home to those suffering from grief, along with the hope and understanding from a community of concerned individuals willing to share their own experiences in order to help others through the difficulties of life. ..."
  There are (free) forums (General, Grieving, Caring & Healing, Coping), with a number of thread categories in each section.
  GriefManagement.org also has articles, like
  • "Senior Grief: How to Deal with Losses When Growing Old"
  • "Healthy Grief, Unhealthy Grief."
  • "Living With, And Understanding, Grief"
  I glanced over the articles, and they seem to be sensibly written. (The last article, for example, says: "While cultures over the history of man have assigned periods of time to this process, we truly never stop grieving the object of our loss in life. ... we, over time, grieve to a lesser level of intensity, and perhaps shorter periods of time, learning to move on with life in the face of our loss, but we rarely forget the object of our loss."
  From personal experience, I think this is a much more realistic expectation than the sort of "closure" that we were hearing about recently. (A few years ago Elizabeth, our youngest child, died during birth: and we nearly lost my wife in the process. I will never, God willing, 'get over' losing her: in the sense of having no awareness of her death, or its effect on our family. The pain is fading, however, and members of the family are adjusting - and I trust will continue to adjust - to her loss.)
  GriefManagement.org seems like a good online resource for people dealing with grief.
• "this time ~ this space"
  "a personal development weblog"
  The author of this blog wrote, in the BlogCatalog discussion thread, "It's a personal blog and I am suffering from depression as a result of grief - my best friend suicided this winter."
  I respectfully submit that, in its own way, that circumstance makes "this time ~ this space" a 'mental health blog.'
  • "Blogging: Defining Moments"
  • "Get a grip! $700 handbags for the eco-minded"
  • "Understanding The Law of Transition"
  "this time ~ this space" will, I expect, give an interesting personal view of an individual's experiences with grief and beliefs.
• "MOMS CRAZY LIFE"
  "A MOM OF 6 KIDS, WIFE OF A COP AND NURSE BY NIGHT"
  I think this excerpt gives a pretty good idea of what the blog is about: "Just when you thought you have left the house with no marks. You soon find food in your hair. No matter the age of your kids, they always seem to GET YOU. I guess these are the sacrifices that I wish someone told me about before I had kids. 'You will never leave the house, EVER AGAIN, until your kids are grown, without a stain/mark/booger ring, Ever again'. I know what I look like when I leave the house, I can only imagine what I smell like?" (from "5/12/08Why can't this Mom be a hot Mom, ever?")
• "Defining Despondency"
  From the discussion thread: "I started blogging to understand PTSD and Clinical Depression. I blog about so many things, but it is always a theme on my site."
  Yesterday's post, "How is Everyone?" is the title, plus an unattributed photo of a hairless Sphynx cat that lives at the Borderlands Science Fiction Bookstore in San Francisco. (The same picture is at "Most Interesting Bookstores of the World" - a page worth visiting for the photos.)
  The post before that was "Stamp Rant," about Monday's American postage increase.
  The same writer is a co-administrator for "Queer Deviations," "a group blog ... for gays and lesbians living with a physical or mental illness."
• "Battling Depression"
  "Battling The Monster: Depression"
  "Perhaps one reason that the facts about depression are so poorly misunderstood is that those who think they might be suffering from it are afraid of being stigmatized as whiners and complainers. So they neither talk to anyone about depression nor seek treatment for it. ..."
  The most recent post is "Don’t Pretend! It Doesn’t Help!" (May 15, 2008). (May 15? Must be a time zone thing. It's still the 14th, here in central North America.) It starts: "I think for most of my post-natal depression I felt as if I was permanently constrained by chains and that someone else had control of my life. It was as if even though I desperately wanted to break free, I just didn’t know how to."
  Before that, it was "10 Questions to Ask Before Hospitalizing Your Kid in a Psychiatric Facility." No question what that post's about.
  Then, there's "Facing Depression." Apparently running away doesn't work. This posts lists several things that do help.
  This looks like a well-focused, and well-informed blog: and a pretty good resource for people interested in, or dealing with, depression.
  
• "Lord I Want To Be Whole"
  From the discussion thread: "Heres mine, I volunteer in the mental health field & work in the field. This is my passion!"
  Her blog header has three quotes: from Anais Nin; Clementine Paddleford; and is Holiness the Dalai Lama.
  This blogger lists her interests as: human rights; advocacy; social issues; live music; camping; abstract art (martina shapiro); writing; reading; volunteering; photography; reading blogs; yoga; and meditation.
  Today's post is "Standing Tall," yesterday's is "Peace."