a feel good article

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_5880576

I found this nice article about a 30 yr old in cali finally graduating form college after losing years to bipolar disorder, and thought you might like to read it.

Luxury Wellness

So I've been doing travel writing since September, and I was thinking of persuing a story that I have since abandoned about luxury spas that offer education and enlightenment. I've changed topics and now I'm writing about cooking classes at resorts, because so many of the luxury spas and resorts offering education and enlightenment freaked me out. There's a bunch of spa trends that I think are sort of unsavory--first, that rehab is becoming glamourous. All of the bug young celebs go or have gone. Lots of spas I looked into offer detox packages. And some of the fancier rehabs look like resorts and offer resort like activities. Second, that resorts are marketing wellness to people who are unbalanced with "experts" that are often life coaches or gurus. And there is a very pricey set of "medical spas", that's what they're called, where actual doctors are on staff. Having spent much of my youth perilously close to being forced into a mental hospital, I didn't desire a vacation at a resort that errily reminded me of one, which is why I'm writing the cooking story instead. And of course, in terms of the problems that plague the mental health community, this one is a pretty low priority. It's more often the case that mental illness is stigmatized than glamourized. But glamorizing mental illness is just the lesser of evils. These luxury trends have a way of permeating the culture. And I think luxury wellness packages for people whose lives are unbalanced undermines the utterly unglamourous work of recovery, and obscures the illnesses themeselves. Oh, and the picture? That's me at the great wall of china.

blog people

so glad we're gonna give this a try. And check out my web site

It's been a challenging week.

Campus mental health is at the forefront of the discussion of the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech this week. Below are some stories that might provide some much-needed context:

1. Statement: Coping with the Tragedies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
   Read the statement by Alison Malmon, L-21 founding member and executive director of Active Minds on Campus
   
2. Video: ABC's Good Morning America
   
   
3. News: “What we really need to do is encourage students to seek mental health treatment if they need it, to remove any barriers to their getting help, destigmatize it, and make it safe, so they know there won’t be negative consequences,” said Karen Bower, a lawyer at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in Washington." Read the full article in the New York Times...
   
4. Discussion: Check out this thread at Care2.com.

This one is a must-read...

The Washington Post's business section has a very interesting article today on disclosing mental illness to an employer. The upshot: there's no easy answer.