Tag: mental health

Can Ayahuasca Help Those With Severe Depression?

Those suffering from severe, untreatable depression may find relief from the psychedelic drug ayahuasca.

A new study suggests that ayahuasca might be able to help people suffering from treatment-resistant depression.

The study is among the first of its kind investigating ayahuasca as a treatment for depression, testing 30 subjects in a randomized and placebo-controlled environment.

Such results could be significant, as some forms of depression do not respond to known drug treatments, including selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).

Ayahuasca is a psychedelic brew derived from Amazonian plants. It’s been used for therapeutic and medicinal purposes for centuries by people living in the Amazonian regions in Brazil, Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador. By boiling the vine banisteriopsis caapi and the shrub psychotria viridis together, the psychoactive compound DMT is extracted.

According to CNN, researchers at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte found 218 depression patients and selected 29 of those with treatment-resistant depression.

Some of the subjects were given the real thing while others were given a convincing placebo, a concoction made of water, yeast, citric acid, and caramel coloring to look brown and taste as sour and bitter as the real thing. As an extra touch, zinc sulphate was added to simulate the nausea and vomiting that often comes with ayahuasca.

Participants took their respective drinks in a hospital room made to look like a living room. In anticipation of the psychedelic effects that can last up to four hours, researchers prepared two playlists for participants, one instrumental and the other in the Portuguese language.

The day after the experiment, 50% of all the patients reported better moods and a reduction in anxiety. After a week, 64% of patients who took the real ayahuasca reported they still felt a reduction in their depression. In comparison, only 27% of the participants who took the placebo still felt better.

Using ayahuasca as a treatment for depression has been explored before, but without proper controls, such as a placebo group. This is a problem because placebos can result in a reduction in depression in 45% of patients, which researchers believe can muddy results and make it hard to find out what’s actually helping.

In the case of this study, participants who experienced more intense hallucinations from the ayahuasca seemed to have a greater reduction in depression, but the researchers warn against calling it a cure, as no single treatment works for everyone.

View the original article at thefix.com

9 July 2018
Kelly Osbourne Gets Candid About Sobriety, Relapse & Mental Health

“What I’ve learnt is that no amount of therapy or medication is going to work unless you want it to.”

Fighting off stigma and advocating for self-care, Kelly Osbourne opened up to a British tabloid about her ongoing reliance on weekly therapy to help her battle with addiction.

“I believe everybody should have therapy,” the 33-year-old told The Sun. “Your mind, body and soul are the full package. I try and go once a week.”

The former reality star also spoke of her seven trips to rehab and two mental hospital stays, and what was different the last time, the thing that finally got her sober. “What I’ve learnt is that no amount of therapy or medication is going to work unless you want it to,” she said. “Until you want to be a good person, you will never be one.”

Osbourne—whose father, rock legend Ozzy Osbourne, has also had very public struggles with addiction—also touched on public perceptions around mental health care. “There’s still a huge stigma, especially in this country,” she said. “You work out to keep your body good so you go to therapy to keep your mind good.”

This isn’t the first time the perpetually purple-haired celeb has dished on her history of treatment and institutionalization; last year, she laid it all out in a book.

The TV star first got into drugs as a teen, when she started taking Vicodin after having her tonsils removed. “I found, when I take this, people like me,” she later told People. “I’m having fun, I’m not getting picked on. It became a confidence thing.”

Over the years, her drug use ballooned into a broader problem. “The only way I could even face my life was by opening that pill bottle, shaking out a few pills—or a handful—into my palm, and throwing them down my throat,” she wrote in her 2017 memoir, There is No F*cking Secret: Letters from a Badass Bitch.

After multiple trips to rehab, she sobered up once—then relapsed while living in Los Angeles. “Every day, I was taking more and more pills, hoping that I wouldn’t wake up,” she wrote.

But she pulled through it and got off drugs again, eventually going on to pen her book about it all.

“Now, I manage pain through creativity, friendship and self-care,” she wrote in a final chapter titled, “Dear Rehab.” “The crazier my life gets, the more focused I become on the things that make me feel good.”

View the original article at thefix.com

9 July 2018
2 States Become First To Require Mental Health Education In Schools

Mental health advocates believe early intervention is key to lowering the suicide rate and effectively addressing mental health.

Mental health education is now required in two U.S. states, New York and Virginia, from as young as the elementary school level. The respective laws were enacted on Sunday, July 1.

The goal is to counter the growing suicide rate and give support to young people who may be vulnerable to mental illness early on. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among people aged 15-24, according to the CDC.

Since 1999, the suicide rate has increased by 30% in the United States, the agency reported in June.

Mental health advocates believe that early intervention is key to lowering the suicide rate and effectively addressing mental health. The New York law states that “90% of youth who die by suicide suffer from depression or another diagnosable and treatable mental illness at the time of their death.”

Lack of mental health support can result in fatal consequences. Virginia state Senator Creigh Deeds saw this for himself, with the suicide death of his 24-year-old son Austin “Gus” Deeds in 2013.

In the aftermath, Deeds said “the system failed my son” when it could not provide a psychiatric bed less than 24 hours before his son’s death.

Deeds created the Virginia law with the help of Albemarle County high school students who had presented a proposal to address mental health issues in schools to the state senator in 2017.

“I was impressed by their thoughtfulness, because a lot of these young people had seen bullying. They had seen depression,” said Deeds, according to CNN. “They had seen classmates that had died by suicide. It’s part of tearing down the stigma and providing some equality with those that struggle with mental health.”

Virginia’s law adds mental health education to the physical education and health curriculum for 9th and 10th graders.

In New York, mental health is now included in the health curriculum in elementary, middle, and high schools. “[Mental health] is an integral part of our overall health and should be an integral part of health education in New York schools,” the law states.

Half of lifetime mental health issues develop before age 14, but on average, most will wait 10 years before seeking help, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

View the original article at thefix.com

6 July 2018
Garbage's Shirley Manson Pens Essay About Self-Harm

“Today I try to remain vigilant against these old thought patterns. I vow to hold my ground. I attempt to be kind, not only to myself but also to other people.”

Shirley Manson has written a vulnerable op-ed for The New York Times, revealing that she began cutting herself as a teenager.

Manson writes that as a rage-filled teenager who had been bullied, had no direction in life, and felt “crushing depression” and the beginnings of alcoholism, she had no outlet for her emotions.

“I didn’t know I was a cutter until the first time I chose to cut. I didn’t even know it was a ‘thing,’” Manson wrote.

After an argument with a boyfriend, Manson took a small, silver knife she had tied to her shoelace and spontaneously cut her arm. She experienced feelings of relief and release from rage.

Manson wrote, “The problem of course with any practice of self-harm is that once you choose to indulge in it, you get better, more efficient, at it. I started to hurt myself more regularly. The cuts got deeper. I hid the scars under my stockings and never breathed a word about it to anyone.”

After a long reprieve from cutting, Manson returned to self-harm when again under incredible stress, this time as a famous musician. She was finally able to work free from the self-destructive act with time, emotional growth, and recognition of what was leading her to cut.

Manson reflects, “Today I try to remain vigilant against these old thought patterns. I vow to hold my ground. I choose to speak up. I attempt to be kind, not only to myself but also to other people. I surround myself with those who treat me well. I strive to be creative and determine to do things that make me happy. I believe it is not what we look like that is important, but who we are. It is how we choose to move through this bewildering world of ours that truly matters.”

Shirley Manson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. She became famous as the vocalist for the alt-rock band Garbage. Garbage released their self-titled debut album in 1995 which went double platinum, with hits like “Only Happy When It Rains” and “Stupid Girl.”

Manson told Consequence of Sound that Garbage will release a new album in 2019.

On the band’s future U.S. concert schedule, Manson said, “It will be a very limited run. This year is supposed to be us writing our new record, so we loathe to take off too much time. But we understand there’s been a frenzy demand from the fans, so we’re going to try to put on a few dates [in the U.S.].”

View the original article at thefix.com

6 July 2018
How Facebook Helped Me Overcome My Anxiety

More than the actual anxiety was the anxiety about the anxiety. I felt tremendous shame for having negative feelings at all.

It was 3pm on a Tuesday, and I was sitting at my desk with my head on my keyboard; I was too revved up to sit still, much less concentrate on work. I was in the midst of a resurgence of my lifelong anxiety and couldn’t talk to anyone or even focus on anything. Months later, I would finally be diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD).

The diagnosis was a relief. It made sense of overwhelming feelings I’d had my whole life that had mostly been regarded as a character flaw. I grew up in an alcoholic home, and I’d been going to therapy for years to face the trauma of my childhood. For the first time I was feeling my emotions instead of mashing them down, and expressing anger before it turned into resentment. My anxiety had decreased throughout this process, but then I decided to get married. My fiance did nothing wrong, mind you, but somehow the thought of marriage made me feel trapped and put me mentally back in my childhood home. I grew incredibly anxious — and yet completely unaware of it.

I’d had trouble sleeping for months but I wasn’t upset or stressed about anything — at least not anything conscious. My stomach felt like it’d been glued shut. I couldn’t eat. Soon enough my weight starting dropping enough for other people to comment on it. Compliments at first that slowly morphed into expressions of concern. I felt nervous all the time and I was hyper-vigilant, no matter who I encountered or where I was. If I was in a car, I’d flinch at the sight of another vehicle pulling out of a parking space as though it was about to hit me — even if it was well outside my physical range. I was sleeping two hours a night and not even feeling tired the next day. Sitting still felt like torture, and I was constantly second guessing myself as if I couldn’t trust my perceptions. I’d had episodes like this off and on for most of my life but I’d always pushed it down. But now, after a lot of therapy and ACOA recovery work, when the anxiety attacks returned, I had to acknowledge them. My overwhelming anxiety was there and I couldn’t hide it no matter how badly I wanted to.

But that was the problem: I really really wanted to.

More than the actual anxiety was the anxiety about the anxiety. I felt tremendous shame for having negative feelings at all. (All you ACOAs out there know what I’m talking about, right?) Growing up in my house, negative feelings had been treated like a disease that had to be banished. This didn’t just come from family but from the entire culture where I was raised. I explained to my therapist that even as an adult I felt like a streak of tar ran through me that marked me as broken, and I lived in constant fear of people seeing it. So when my anxiety revisited me, I tried to hide it, but piling that shame on top of it only made it worse. I wanted simultaneously to jump out of my own skin and hide inside my house forever.

Then I remembered what Brene Brown said in her book on shame: that silence fed shame while a sense of common humanity combatted it. That meant talking about what I was feeling. Reaching out to tell someone was a major part of fighting shame because it made you feel less alone. Then it occurred to me: what if I just preempted this terror of someone discovering my anxious state and just told them? If I owned how I felt in advance, perhaps I’d feel less shame because I wouldn’t be so desperate to hide it. Problem was, any time I tried to talk about it in person, I completely fell to bits and I didn’t exactly want to put myself through that over and over again.

So instead I opted to put it on Facebook.

Of course, Facebook is the capital of oversharing and I normally kept my digital shouting box strictly to jokes. But I just didn’t see a better way to inform people of what I was going through or that my behavior might be different than my usual. In fairness to Brene Brown, she clarifies that reaching out to others in order to combat shame needs to be aimed at people who are receptive to hearing your pain. She definitely doesn’t suggest blasting it all over your social media. But that’s what I did.

I wrote a long explanation of my mental state asking for compassion rather than advice and hit “post” before I could change my mind. Now, I should be clear that I didn’t exactly blast this to everyone I knew on Facebook. I used customized security settings so only those in the same city as me and my oldest, closest friends could see it, and I blocked my whole family as well as loose acquaintances. I hit post and immediately shut my laptop, vowing not to log into Facebook for at least a couple hours. I’d purposely planned my post to coincide with a concert I was attending because I knew it would prevent me from checking my phone constantly. I figured if anyone was judgemental or shaming, the bite might sting less if several hours had gone by — or possibly I wouldn’t even notice it in a flood of other tiny red notifications.

When I finally gathered the courage to open Facebook again, I had a torrent of messages and notifications. Most of them carried the same sentiment: I have anxiety, too. While I’d certainly blasted my personal world with my emotional state hoping to get some level empathy, I didn’t anticipate which corners of my social circles would be delivering it. Close friends of mine, people I used to share every secret with, messaged to tell me they’d recently gone through something similar and not talked about it. Acquaintances wrote with ideas and (indeed) some advice. Much of the advice wasn’t especially helpful, but knowing that I wasn’t alone made a world of difference. For months afterward, casual acquaintances told me that sharing my experience actually helped them feel less alone, which I hadn’t even thought about.

I can’t pretend like simply talking about my anxiety made it go away or even lessen much. It still took another year of focus, self care, and work before I truly felt like myself again. Sharing my anxiety online allowed me to deal with it without shame and without feeling like I was broken. In other words, it meant one less roadblock to contend with, and — given my emotional state at the time — I might not have made it through the anxiety without it.

View the original article at thefix.com

6 July 2018
Rapper Vic Mensa Deals With Addiction, Mental Health In New Song

The 25-year-old rapper gets candid about relapsing, recovery and mental health in his new song “10K Problems.”

Chicago rapper Vic Mensa just dropped his second single in a month called “10K Problems.” The song tackles addiction, his struggles with his mental health and dealing with family tragedy.

“10K Problems” immediately received strong reviews upon its release, and while the song is a little over two minutes, its impact hits hard from the beginning: “Niggas asking where I been at, I gotta recap it/Relapsing d-r-u-g habits/Tryin’ to move forward, depression been holding me backwards/Recovery ain’t a straight line.”

Then as Mensa raps on, he deals with his father becoming paralyzed after surgery. “It’s a painful process watching your parents die/And niggas look at my life and think I’m in paradise.”

Like the Fugees classic “Ready or Not,” Vic Mensa rapped “10K Problems” over the same Enya song, “Boadicea.” In the brief time the single has been out on SoundCloud, Rolling Stone has called it “cathartic,” and HotNewHipHop writes that “when Vic Mensa is his vulnerable self, he is able to weave a story with the best of ‘em.”

Continuing in the same self-confessional vein, Mensa also promised Business Insider that his next album will be “powerful, aggressive, beautiful, sad, all those things… Whenever I get into making an album, it’s always like a really self-reflective, self-expressive journey. And I’m learning about myself in real time.”

Mensa had previously tackled addiction in the single “Rollin’ Like a Stoner.” In the song, Mensa rapped, “I am a disaster, I don’t need a recipe/Tried to be sober, that didn’t work for me.”

Mensa told High Times, “I really was writing that song about a point in time in my life, for the most part. I was fucking with a lot of drugs. I went sober and then I’d do hard drugs some time ago.

But I still bounce back sometimes,” hence the lyrics in “10K Problems” where he raps, “Recovery ain’t a straight line.” (As a Mensa profile in Billboard reports, Mensa’s favorite drugs included mushrooms, acid, Molly, and Adderall.)

Mensa added that artists should be open about drugs and alcohol, as well as their mental health struggles. “I do think that shedding some honest light on drug use is important… A lot of youngins growing up in the hood, they witness death and despair firsthand… and we’re trying to deal with trauma often through external substances.”

Mensa admitted he sees a therapist, and practices meditation as well, and he “100%” feels that “the stigma is lessening” around mental health, “but it still needs to be introduced in a major way.”

View the original article at thefix.com

3 July 2018
Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson Talks Mental Health, Psychiatric Drugs

“People’s brains develop at different stages in their lives, and there’s no cookie-cutter approach to the human brain. It’s terrible what they’re doing to kids.”

Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer of British metal legends Iron Maiden, has a reputation for being very outspoken and polarizing. Now the frontman is speaking out against giving psychiatric drugs to children.

As Dickinson said in the Heavy Hour podcast, he is “not a believer” in giving psychiatric meds to children. He recalled the time when a doctor wanted to put his son Austin on Ritalin.

“I was just, like, ‘I won’t give drugs to my son. What is this? He’s five years old,’” Dickinson explained. “He looks pretty normal to me. He runs around a lot; that’s what five-year-olds do.’”

Dickinson added that “maybe” psychiatric drugs could be given to children “in extreme cases, but even then, I’m not sure. What the hell did we do before drugs with kids?”

As the father of three children, Dickinson acknowledges that “every family comes with the baggage of the previous family; it inherits it. And so you have to run with that. A certain amount of it is instinct; some of it is learned behavior; some of it is behavior that you might have to unlearn.”

Mental health issues may not be able to be “learned” away as Dickinson suggests, but his stance against prescribing children psychiatric drugs is a matter of dispute among many mental health treatment providers.

One study published earlier this year suggests that children are actually under-prescribed psychiatric medications that could help their ADHD, depression, and anxiety disorders. On the other hand, California had to pass multiple pieces of legislation to stop the growing trend of the overmedication of children in foster care.

The classic Iron Maiden song “Ace’s High” includes a legendary speech from Winston Churchill, who some believe had bipolar disorder.

Dickinson says, “Churchill would unquestionably have been medicated. And many of the great leaders of the world would have been medicated. People’s brains develop at different stages in their lives, and there’s no cookie-cutter approach to the human brain. It’s terrible what they’re doing to kids. And it’s all because of the drive to categorize and put people in little boxes to make it easy for people.”

Dickinson’s children also steered clear from illicit drugs, thanks to their rock star father, who brought them out on the road when they were young.

Dickinson told The Mirror, “What was great for my kids was when they were growing up we took them out on the road. They would be backstage, and there would be some idiot who’d done too much coke sweating profusely, teeth chattering. ‘Daddy, why is that man doing that?’ ‘That’s because he’s on drugs,’ I’d say. ‘Drugs? Are they a bad thing?’ I’d say, ‘Judge for yourself.’

“The best possible antidote for people not to take drugs is to go and see a bunch of people who are completely messed up out of their brains. They got an education in drugs and made good decisions.”

View the original article at thefix.com

30 June 2018
Men… I’ve Always Been Obsessed With Them

It’s not him, it’s the version of him I’d chosen to focus on, ignoring all the bad behavior which followed, as I have way too many times.

“Addicted to Love” is a great song––it’s also a not-so-great running theme in my life. Last week, at 62 ½, it dawned on me that there’s never been a time––nary a day of my life––when I haven’t had, first a boy, then a man, front and center in my brain. Attempting to add up the hours––the real estate––and what I might’ve done with both had I been more focused on me––rather than them––is depressing as hell.

I can remember being a little girl of not quite 8, chasing 10-year-old Andy Helfman––all day, all summer long––for at least three years running. I eventually caught him and got the chaste kiss I sought, and the satisfaction of discovering he liked me, too. Returning to the city from the Catskills, there was Roy. I picked him on the first day of school; in June he asked me out. I fell for Paul when I was barely 12. I harbored that love for years until he returned it, in his fashion––breaking my heart and hymen. There was Lenny––unrequited; with Randy, I came to wish it was unrequited; Vinny #1, and then Vinny # 2––both mine for the having, and both exceedingly inappropriate.

I sound insanely fickle. And yet, I was fairly easy on the fickle, heavy on the insane. These were not short impetuous crushes. I harbored all of them well past their expiration dates, either until I got them or until the next one took hold, oft with some heart-breaking overlap.

Looking back––how much of my quest was about the conquest? The chase. Winning. Ownership. Not to amass bounty, but to capture––love. To fill a hole, to prove my worth––which I could never seem to do with the people I deemed most important, including my rarely-considered self. I never thought of it in those terms––yet now––it’s impossible for me not to see the pattern.

How many times have I given my time, attention, and power to a guy who either didn’t ask for it, didn’t appreciate it, or used it more as a means to control rather than love.

I followed one boyfriend to the college of his choice, and another, post-degree, to the city of his––in both cases putting aside my own desires. I married the second one, knowing he was a volatile alcoholic. But, he was my volatile alcoholic. I waitressed, putting my career on hold, so he could… sleep. So what if there were holes in the walls behind every picture? You couldn’t see them, so I could pretend they weren’t there. I spent the majority of our years together obsessing… about how to get away from him.

It took falling in love with someone else to manage it.

My second marriage grew from a years-long professional friendship. The romance was built on mutual respect, affection, and ultimately, love. In my mid-thirties, almost immediately, I shifted my focus from my career to managing his and to starting a family. It was my choice, my great privilege and pleasure. For a decade, as his star ascended, our kids blossomed and thrived. When his up came crashing down, it took our love with it. We spent the next 10 years struggling over what once was, trying like hell to get it back––unsuccessfully. Graciously, the kids continued to bloom––magnificently.

As a middle-aged single mom, without a career or a man, I obsessively struggled to find both. My long-starved creative passions swiftly found their voice and vision, and have met with some success. The money and the manhunt have been an exhausting, heartbreaking, ego-crushing exercise in futility. In spite of all the years, and lessons learned, I’m struggling to find my way with both. I’m still giving men who don’t deserve it––and sometimes don’t even know it––my time, energy, and my power. And, there’s always a man––and a way to stalk him.

Back in the day, I did it with the phone: I’d call the object of my desire, hear his voice, or,sometimes hell-forbid, his parent’s voice, and hang up. I graduated to the walk-by––finding any excuse to pass his house, or where he hung out, in hopes of catching a glimpse––a smile––or a moment of his time. What a waste of mine.

Facebook, Twitter and, Instagram took my occasional insanity and turned it into an ongoing opportunity to “check-in” on the latest object of my obsession affection.

Dating apps are an even bigger nightmare, with distance offered at any given moment. Twenty-three miles? Hey! Where the hell are you?

Finally, two weeks ago, I freed myself from the now daily insanity. Julian, my latest (mind) fuck, doesn’t utilize social media (talk about insanity). I had no way to monitor him other than to glimpse What’s App to see when he’d last been on. Why exactly? What did I gain by such behavior? Heartache. I knew when he was communicating, I also knew it wasn’t with me.

I tried weaning myself from looking, but just as it was with pot 17 years ago, I had to quit cold turkey. I’ve stuck to it for 14 days, and it’s working. As each day passes with zero connection, he fades from my mind, and perhaps more importantly, from my heart. With distance, the rose lenses are clearing their hue––less obstructing my view. I’ve come to appreciate that I’d been romanticizing him, focusing on the alchemy of the connection, whilst ignoring the harsh cruelty of the abrupt disconnection. It’s not him, it’s the version of him I’d chosen to focus on, ignoring all the bad behavior which followed, as I have way too many times.

For the first time in memory, there’s no man in my head. I’ve stepped away from the swipe. That leaves a lot of time and space to think about worthy people, ambitions, and causes––and maybe, at last, to include myself as one of them.

View the original article at thefix.com

27 June 2018
Chester Bennington's Widow Talks Mental Health, Suicide Prevention

“If we can find good coping mechanisms, if we have people we trust that we can talk to, that helps us make better choices for ourselves. My husband didn’t have that in a lot of situations.”

In the wake of the suicides of Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade, Chester Bennington’s widow Talinda Bennington has continued speaking out about mental health and suicide prevention.

It has been nearly a year since Bennington died by suicide on July 20, 2017 at the age of 41. In a recent CNN town hall with Anderson Cooper, Talinda described realizing that there were warning signs before her husband died. “I am now more educated about those signs, but they were definitely there: the hopelessness, the change of behavior, isolation.”

Talinda was used to her husband being depressed, adding, “That was all part of our daily life. Sometimes, some signs were there more than others. Sometimes, they weren’t there at all.”

The rocker was in good spirits in the days leading up to his death. Talinda shared, “He was [at] his best. We were on a family vacation, and he decided to go back home to do a television commercial. This was not a time where we or any of our family suspected this to happen, which is terrifying… We thought everything was OK.”

Unlike her husband, Talinda did not suffer from depression. “Watching my husband go through it, I had no idea. I could not relate.”

Bennington was very open in interviews about his struggles with depression, addiction, and dealing with the trauma of being sexually abused when he was young.

In an interview that was released shortly after his death, he said, “My whole life, I’ve just felt a little off. I find myself getting into these patterns of behavior or thought—especially when I’m stuck up here [in my head]; I like to say that ‘this is like a bad neighborhood, and I should not go walking alone.”

“If we can find good coping mechanisms, if we have people we trust that we can talk to, that helps us make better choices for ourselves,” Talinda said. “And my husband didn’t have that in a lot of situations.”

His Linkin Park bandmate Mike Shinoda is also speaking out about mental health. Shinoda, who recently released a solo album titled Post Traumatic, told Billboard, “It was so weird being given a membership to this club that I never wanted to be a part of. One thing I’ve learned, in terms of mental health, we talk about it being like physical health. Mental health should be the same. Mental health is just health. The way we get to that point is to check in with ourselves.”

If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide, call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) in the United States. To find a suicide helpline outside the U.S., visit IASP or Suicide.org.

View the original article at thefix.com

26 June 2018
Janet Jackson Opens Up About Depression Struggles

The pop icon penned a personal essay about mental health and her quest to find happiness for Essence magazine.

Janet Jackson is the latest celebrity to disclose her personal battles with depression, which she traced back to her childhood.

A letter written by the iconic performer and youngest of the famous Jackson family is featured in the July/August issue of Essence magazine, in which she describes to readers her experience with depression and her quest to find happiness.

“I struggled with depression. The struggle was intense… Low self-esteem might be rooted in childhood feelings of inferiority. It could relate to failing to meet impossibly high standards,” Jackson wrote. “And of course there are always the societal issues of racism and sexism. Put it all together and depression is a tenacious and scary condition. Thankfully, I found my way through it.”

Her negative body image fed into her feelings of inferiority early in life. Jackson began performing at a young age, appearing in the variety show The Jacksons at age 10.

“I wasn’t happy with the way I looked. For most of my life, that lack of happiness followed me. I wish someone had said, ‘You look fine. You look healthy. Being a little chubby is the least important thing in the world. Enjoy your childhood. Enjoy running and laughing and playing. Stop looking in the mirror and comparing yourself to others,’” she wrote.

This feeling persisted through adulthood, and happiness was “elusive,” Jackson said. “In my forties: Like millions of women in the world, I still heard voices inside my head berating me, voices questioning my value,” she wrote. “A reunion with old friends might make me happy. A call from a colleague might make me happy. But because sometimes I saw my failed relationships as my fault, I easily fell into despair.”

The “All for You” singer says she’s “no expert” when it comes to happiness. “I have only my life experience as a guide. I’ve known great happiness and great sadness. But I guess the key question is, what do I really know about happiness?”

But the singer says she’s found peace in caring for her one-year-old son, Eissa.

“The height of happiness is holding my baby son in my arms and hearing him coo, or when I look into his smiling eyes and watch him respond to my tenderness,” he wrote. “When I kiss him. When I sing him softly to sleep. During those sacred times, happiness is everywhere. Happiness in gratitude to God. Happiness is saying, ‘Thank you, God, for my life, my energy and my capacity to grow in love.”

View the original article at thefix.com

26 June 2018