Be The Change (Train)
If we aspire to contribute something to our society — to achieve a new vision of things — we need to begin with ourselves. We need to decide to transform ourselves, and that can come only through...
View ArticleJesus, The Devil, And All The Horrible People They Know
Standing at the corner in an old green army jacket. Big plastic olive buttons, double-stitched eyelets, and a flaking white upside-down cross on a sharp-cut-but-fraying lapel. I’m approached by...
View ArticleBig Oil, Dolphins, & Deliverance: Radicalize, Resist
In all of your deliberations … in your efforts at law making, in all your official acts, self interest shall be cast into oblivion. – The Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy Physical, mental, and...
View ArticleEye’ll Be Back
There was a running interest in what effects people’s standing in the field of radio energy have … if you could hypnotize somebody easier if he was standing in a radio beam. – MKULTRA Director Sidney...
View Article‘Malignant Sadness’& Depression Books for The Uninitiated
Normal sadness is to depression what normal growth is to cancer. – Malignant Sadness, Lewis Wolpert Only through the introduction but if I could recommend a book for those who think they have been...
View ArticleBrain Collector’s Insult: Who Finds ‘Humane Treatment’ In An Iron Cage?
The head of the local brain bank came for our brains this week. At the night-time gathering in a church meeting hall, the head of NAMI local promised his attic insulation to the man in a gushing...
View ArticleEnd The Stigma: Prejudice Still Punishing The Mentally Ill
Out of nowhere, something like an ocean crashes on top of you, burying you in the deep. Your sudden impossible depth, the smothering weight, means your next gasp will be your last. Your brain screams...
View ArticleStigma Letters: Mental Health and the Permanent Record
Greg, I read your column “Come stand with me.” It really hit home for me. I was diagnosed with depression in 1998 and have definitely been on a roller coaster ride since then. I am a nurse employed at...
View ArticleAccusations Of Mental Cruelty And The Hunt For Lord Mirth
To go to bed frustrated, despondent, or angry is to frequently enter shock therapy. In my case, I was still smarting from my decision to go public, the withholding of a blessing from (and it may...
View ArticleThe Biggest Lie: Admission Of Mental Illness Veers From The Mark
I had intended to share the story of a young man killed recently in a mental-health facility. Or deliver highlights from the best presentation of depression I’ve ever heard — any number of important...
View ArticleEnvironmental Destruction, Activism, and Cultivating Mental Resiliency
[I realized after posting this on my environmental site, harman on earth, that there may be more generalized lessons to take away for those who suffer from any/all the forms of mental intensity (as my...
View ArticleFrom Patient To Mental Health Advocate: TMS Clinic Interviews Me About...
[Republished from TMS NeuroHealth Centers' website.] Greg Harman had been living two completely separate lives; a successful Texas journalist and a struggling major depression patient researching the...
View ArticleThe Egg & I: My Austin Chronicle Feature Story
I’m on my back in a dimly lit room on the seventh floor of a Dallas research hospital. A device roughly two feet tall resembling an oversized egg is wheeled up behind me, its single blue clawlike...
View ArticleFeeling Depression And Doing Love Anyway
Beyond the contorted histrionics frequently heralding mutilations and suicide attempts (or at least painfully colorful yogas of deep and violent death longing, limbs askewing)… Below and beyond the...
View ArticleAcross The Universe: A Dialogue About Entropy, Obsolescence, & All That
An email arrives from across the world describing a place I’ve been. It says: I don’t have anywhere I have to be. The skies are curling cold and light diminishing. Boxes of empty carbs vanish (again?)...
View ArticleRumination Games: Unmasking Depression’s Engine
Of the millions upon millions of moments that make up a life, there are inevitably high and low spots. Sadly, since the brain has evolved to make sure the most damaging moments stick fastest (probably...
View Article‘Beginning And The End’
“When we let go of our battles and open our heart to things as they are, then we come to rest in the present moment. This is the beginning and the end of spiritual practice. “Only in this moment can we...
View ArticlePoem: Misremembering ‘Rainbow Beard’
“The problem with researching the origins of stuff is all that space. Between ‘what was’ and the wishing of now: a sulking tunnel clear back to the trees (without a light switch in sight) and...
View ArticleSad Foods, Or: Everything at the Corner Store Wants to Kill Me
Here’s a chicken-and-egg for you: Which came first, the lazy prefrontal cortex signaling classical signs of depression or the low-energy body that must be dragged about from room to room without a...
View ArticleRobin Williams’ Suicide: Blaming the Victim, Shaming the Ill
I know next to nothing of Mr. Williams’ health history and have followed news of his death only in passing. It’s not that I don’t care. It’s just, like the Williams we’re all suddenly becoming better...
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