Answer Addiction

Tag: living with mental illness

  • How Tattoos Have Empowered Those With Mental Health Issues

    How Tattoos Have Empowered Those With Mental Health Issues

    In recent years, tattoos have come to serve as a reminder to keep fighting for people with mental health issues.

    Tattoos aren’t just an art form, they’re also a form of personal expression for many who get them. And as a report in Well + Good explains, for some people, tattoos are an important part of maintaining mental health as well.

    When one woman, Annie Jacobson, got a tattoo on her arm that reads “Be Here Now,” she was looking back on a time when her anxiety caused a mental meltdown.

    “Almost exactly a year prior to getting the tattoo, my anxiety had reached an all-time high, and it had spiraled out of control in a way that my therapist could no longer give me the help I needed.”

    Jacobson did eventually recover, but when she finally got the tattoo, “I knew it wasn’t over – my struggle will never be over – but I wanted a way to remember how much had changed in a year. I wanted something to look at to remind me to be present and live in the moment.”

    Demi & Selena

    As this report explains, people getting tattoos as mental health reminders has become more popular in recent years. Demi Lovato, who has been very open about her mental health struggles, has the words “stay” and “strong” tattooed on her wrists.

    Recently, Selena Gomez also got semicolon tattoos with Tommy Dorman and Alisha Boe from 13 Reasons Why. The semicolon tattoo represents empowerment for those with mental health and addiction issues.

    As one mental health professional explains, “For the person who chooses to get a tattoo, many times it’s a much deeper process of reflection. What’s the point of getting a tattoo, what purpose will this serve, what’s the symbolism – a tattoo serves something deeper for that individual involved. For example, a star might mean something deeper, like a life lost.”

    A tattoo artist in Brooklyn named Joice Wang is also offering free tattoos to help people cover up their self-harm scars, as long as they donate money to a mental health charity. As Wang says, “This way I’m able to tackle two issues: funding the necessary resources for people who are going through anything traumatic or need assistance in any way, and also covering up scars.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Why Is Life Expectancy Lower For People With Mental Illness?

    Why Is Life Expectancy Lower For People With Mental Illness?

    New research explores why people with mental illness have a lower life expectancy than those without it.

    People with mental illness often die decades sooner than members of the general population, not because of suicide but because of physical illnesses and inequities in access to care. 
        
    “The consequent poor physical health outcomes of people with mental illness have been alluded to as a human rights issue,” researchers for The Lancet Psychiatry wrote in a recent report. “The premature mortality of people with mental illness reflects a large number of health inequalities between people with and without mental illness throughout the life course.”

    It has long been established that people with severe mental illness have life expectancies that are years shorter than people without severe mental illness. However, new research indicates that people with all types of mental illness have decreased life expectancy. 

    “There is now evidence that individuals who have diagnoses across the entire spectrum of mental disorders have a substantially reduced life expectancy compared with the general population,” the authors wrote. More research needs to be done on how milder mental illnesses affect life expectancy, they write. 

    Reduced life expectancy for people with mental illness is a global trend, study authors pointed out. 

    Lifestyle Choices

    There are a number of factors that affect the reduced life expectancy for people with mental illness. Suicide accounts for 17% of deaths among the population. In addition, physical disease, including cardiovascular disease and diabetes, occur at higher rates in people with mental illness.

    Compounding that, lifestyle choices like smoking, substance use and low exercise levels can lower the overall health of people with mental illness. Finally, many psychiatric medications have complex and potentially dangerous physical side effects. 

    A multidisciplinary approach to health, incorporating physical and mental health care, could make a difference in improving life expectancy for people with mental illness. 

    “Modifiable lifestyle factors, such as physical activity, diet, and smoking, are increasingly recognized as being fundamental to both physical and mental health,” the report authors wrote. 

    Addressing systematic issues like poverty and access to care is also important for both physical and mental health. Often, a person’s physical and mental health troubles can compound each other.

    “For instance, people with mental illness are more likely to be in poverty and to have cardiometabolic and infectious diseases, and conversely, chronic physical health conditions and social deprivation are key risk factors for mental illness,” the report authors wrote. 

    There Is Hope

    Although the research is grim, The Lancet report ends on a positive note. 

    “Nonetheless, our Commission takes an optimistic approach, and describes how disparities could be reduced through evidence-based prescribing and better integration of physical and mental health care,” the report reads. “Overall, protecting the physical health of people with mental illness should be considered an international priority for reducing the personal, social, and economic burden of mental health conditions.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Robert F. Kennedy's Granddaughter Dies After Overdose 

    Robert F. Kennedy's Granddaughter Dies After Overdose 

    Saoirse Kennedy Hill was 22.

    Robert F. Kennedy’s granddaughter, who spoke openly as a high schooler about her struggles with depression and suicide, was found dead of an apparent overdose at the family’s summer home near Cape Cod, Massachusetts yesterday. Saoirse Kennedy Hill was 22. 

    Hill was the daughter of Courtney Kennedy Hill, 62, and Paul Hill, 65, and the granddaughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy and his wife Ethel, 91. 

    Emergency responders went to the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis, Massachusetts at about 2 p.m. Thursday afternoon. Hill was transported to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The family confirmed the death to People. 

    “Our hearts are shattered by the loss of our beloved Saoirse. Her life was filled with hope, promise, and love,” the family statement said. “She cared deeply about friends and family, especially her mother Courtney, her father Paul, her stepmother Stephanie, and her grandmother Ethel.”

    Ethel Remembers

    Ethel Kennedy remembered her granddaughter’s passions. 

    “The world is a little less beautiful today. She lit up our lives with her love, her peals of laughter and her generous spirit,” Kennedy said. “Saoirse was passionately moved by the causes of human rights and women’s empowerment and found great joy in volunteer work, working alongside indigenous communities to build schools in Mexico. We will love her and miss her forever.”

    The police said that the matter remains under investigation. 

    Three years ago, Hill wrote an essay for the newspaper at her private high school, Deerfield Academy, detailing her struggles with mental illness. 

    “My depression took root in the beginning of my middle school years and will be with me for the rest of my life,” she wrote. “Although I was mostly a happy child, I suffered bouts of deep sadness that felt like a heavy boulder on my chest.”

    Coping With Mental Illness

    In that essay, she revealed that she had a suicide attempt just before her junior year. Since then, she was taking her health into her own hands, she said. “When I’m in a really bad place, I do my best to surround myself with positive people and upbeat music, but too often it feels as if I’m drowning in my own thoughts, while everyone else seems to be breathing comfortably.”

    In the days before Hill died she seemed to be doing just that. Her uncle Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted an Instagram photo of her jumping from a sailboat into the ocean (the picture seems to have since been taken down). 

    This isn’t the first time that the Kennedy family has been touched by tragedy, or addiction. Patrick Kennedy, the nephew of Hill’s grandfather, has become an outspoken advocate for addiction and mental health treatment, after getting into recovery himself. 

    View the original article at thefix.com