One Man. Talking About His Life With Depression. "I'm ready to tell my story. It's time." That's what I heard from Stuart Walker, owner of Clubhaus Fitness, a tall, muscular guy with a boisterous laugh and incredibly busy schedule. He knew I was researching Perfectly Hidden Depression. He had listened to me talk about how [...]
Returning to Medications It was sometime in my early teens. Finally reached some sort of diagnosis for whatever the hell it was that consumed me. I was put on whatever might have the potential to work. My therapy at the time was a combination of help from my general practitioner, psychologist and psychiatrist. The psychiatrist [...]
Destigmatizing Medication: How Psychiatric Medicine Helped Me Survive Isaac James Baker shares his personal story of how his psychiatric drugs helped to save his life, as he battled anorexia, anxiety and depression. When my psychiatrist told me he was prescribing medication, I told him, “No thanks, I’m fine.” But he insisted, rolling off an impressive [...]
Hello my name is Zach Liberatore and I am a victim of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I was clinically diagnosed with it and prescribed medication during the end of 2012 when I checked into the psychiatric ward at ECMC. This disease dragged me to the brink of insanity and I had reached the point where I [...]
My Secret Is Out: I Have OCD! When I was young, a neighbor accused me of creating mischief on her property. She called the police. By the time they arrived, I was about five miles away. They tracked me down and brought me home. She filed charges, and we went to court. She lost. But [...]
When I found my father’s journals, I knew I had to stop running away from mental illness. They were at the bottom of a box containing his unpublished plays and stories that revealed his struggles during the time I was growing up. By the time I read them I was a successful psychotherapist with a [...]
JUST PRETEND _____ Dear friend, How are you? Sorry I keep on forgetting to ask you about you.. I guess I am just too lost to look beyond my own head and that kinda makes me a bad friend. So, I apologize. This week hasn’t been a good one… I made a few decisions… Have [...]
Someone told me that every great story starts with the main character thinking he or she is a nobody. Arya Stark, Luke Skywalker, Rey (Skywalker?), Captain America, and Spider-Man are just a few examples. But, sadly, these are fictional people. The writers create their destinies and mold them the way they see fit. Characters can [...]
I Am Not My Illness I was drowning. Water was filling my lungs, and I couldn’t breathe. The world seemed to dance around me, but I only saw it through my blurry vision blocked by water. I was gasping, sputtering, coughing; I was trying everything that I could think of to keep breathing. My hands [...]
Reflections on Overcoming Stigma to Pay Forward Back when I was just a yuppie, I learned a few points of wisdom that I want to pay forward to some mental health academics and administrators. I was learning to chop cheese steaks at a Korean owned deli and instantly enamored with this mentor on the grill, [...]
