This is what the result of unresolved trauma looks like. What we witnessed Will Smith do in assaulting Chris Rock during the Academy Award ceremony was a trauma response. While I am in no way condoning violence, this is a very public and important oppo…
“America’s health care workers are on the brink of collapse. If we want them to hold on and be there for us when we are too sick to walk, stand or breathe, we must act now. Cast aside political opinions. Follow CDC guidelines. Wear masks when you…
“Peace is your home, integrity is the way to it, and everything you long for will meet you there.” – Martha Beck In 2017, the blueprint I had crafted for my life evaporated before my eyes. Up until that point, I had systematically che…
“Doctor, why don’t you remember when I was last hospitalized? I told you about that two months ago. You obviously don’t care if you can’t remember. Is all of psychiatry like this? Maybe I need to see someone else. Why won’…
I love generic brand products. I will fight to the last breath for my Shoppers’ Choice Adhesive Bandages rather than pay an extra $0.49 for Band-Aids. So why, then, have I been paying up to $395 every month for brand-name medication for the last …
An excerpt from The Empathy Academy. It might be tempting to choose an easier path, Monty thought, but amid the stress, pain, and tragedy, there were also triumphs: A patient’s seizures stop. A CT scan is clear. He remembered resuscitating Mrs. C…
While the mental illness patient is afflicted by very real and painful feelings, these feelings are internal and not visible to others. The indications of the condition then, whether those of depression, anxiety, or even hallucinations, can be said to …
The medical establishment has made wonderful strides in destigmatizing psychiatric disorders. However, we have helped to create a devastating stigmatization of emotional distress. Somehow, as it has become acceptable to suffer from a psychiatric illnes…
Until recently, I have remained relatively silent in the realm of eating disorder advocacy and silenced by the exhaustion of my own lived experience with an eating disorder. However, my silence further contributed to the pain. So now, I speak. And as I…
We are nurses. We are in highly dangerous and volatile units at hospitals. We are not working in a prison. We work in behavioral health. The intensive management unit, the adolescent unit, the dual-diagnosis unit, and the behavioral health emergency de…
