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ryanmeft · 5 years ago

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Movie Review: The Mountain

It’s hard, when you’ve got a thoroughly detestable character, not to preach about it. In most movies, a man like Dr. Wallace Fiennes would at some point, probably to his socially-stunted assistant Andy, give a chilling speech about why he is the way he is, how he sees the world. His entire profession is to lobotomize mental patients, which he does as though he’s fixing siding: aloof, removed, clinical. When he is done for the day he often parties. There is no “a-ha” moment for the audience. We are simply asked to regard a detestable man the way that man does everyone: as an experiment for our thoughts.

Fiennes is not the main character, for to see the world from inside his head would be all wrong. Instead we see it from inside that of Andy (Tye Sheridan). He is a young man whose mother was institutionalized, lobotomized and, we can assume, failed to survive at the hands of Fiennes. After Andy’s father (Udo Kier) dies, Andy has a garage sale, and Fiennes shows up. Andy already has plenty of reason to dislike Fiennes, so there is some question as to why he agrees to a job documenting his lobotomy patients, who he travels from hospital to hospital to “treat”. He may need the money. He may need something to do. He may be simply hoping to find his mother, whose hospital Fiennes claims he can no longer access. He may just lack the social skills to say no. He is, after all, frozen by the mere dreamed specter of ordinary human experiences: love making, skating, ordinary mornings with breakfast and the paper. It sometimes seems as if he cannot emotionally react to anything, in his mind or outside it. Things seem to freeze when he looks at or thinks about them.

We only ever see Fiennes through Andy’s eyes. Andy seems oddly ambivalent about him, and we view him, always, at a remove. He is played by Jeff Goldblum, who, for all that his popular roles frequently cast him as a flamboyant devil-may-care type, can be really damn creepy when he wants to be. He is vain; he enjoys the attention being on him while he operates. He is selfish; when he is told that the medical profession has begun to consider medication more strongly, he insists his methods are better. He is greedy; when one hospital decides to no longer employ him because they’ve come to the crazy realization that there are better ways to treat mental illness than cutting part of the patient’s brain out, his one and only concern is for his own potential lost income. He is an unabashed hedonist; when a patient appears to die on the table (at least there is an awful lot of blood, more than I would appreciate coming out of my head), he spends the night gleefully hitting on women and dancing. He is never unhappy or doubtful except when he is denied his own way. Goldblum does not hesitate or hold back, bringing this amoral man to life with no compromises. Imagine his role as the out-to-lunch, dictatorial Grandmaster in Thor: Ragnarok, but with all the humor and fun sapped out of it. It is one thing to see such a man in a live-action cartoon, quite another to encounter one in the real world.

The key character for both men is with a woman named Susan (Hannah Gross). She has been kept in institutions by her mad father (Denis Lavant), who now wishes to hire Fiennes to do what he does. Fiennes accepts without hesitation. Susan’s “illness”? She is rebellious. This was of course a common affliction of women in the days before they were generally allowed to have personalities of their own. Andy connects with her in a different way, and though they share some of the most unappealing, mercenary sex you’ll see on screen, he has done something her father will not and Fiennes cannot: seen her as human.

The most ghastly part of Fiennes is that he is loosely based on a real person, a Dr. Walter Freeman who become rather infamous for his development of the transorbital lobotomy. If you are old enough, you may remember him and his procedure. If, like me, you are not, and you are having a good day and wish to continue doing so, don’t go and find out any more. Rick Alverson has opted to direct his film, from a screenplay by himself, Dustin Guy Defa and Colm O’Leary, in a way so as to obscure all of the actual procedures, and having read about them it is easy to see why; they are the stuff of nightmares.

Instead we see the people before and after. None of those shown in the film seem to have particularly severe issues. Fiennes does not care. The film has been set in the 1950’s and spread throughout the heartland of America. There is scarcely an appointment in Fiennes’s calendar which does not involve driving through forests, mountains, or other ostensibly scenic places. They are not scenic here. In keeping with Alverson’s stated desire to present a counter-argument to the idea that in America anything is possible, his vision of the core of America in mid-century is anything but booming. Lorenzo Hagerman’s camera may be looking at mountains and trees and winding roads, but the color palette is as sterile as the operating rooms of the hospitals---everything is washed out and bleak, and the majestic drives serve to emphasize the distance between Fiennes’s soul, if he has one, and what he is doing. Susan’s father, Jack, serves as a contrast between what the society of the time would accept and what it would not. He is clearly crazy, himself. He rants and raves for no reason. He is antagonistic to everyone he even suspects may be a little different, getting in Andy’s face and all but daring him to challenge him on whatever bizarre thing the older man is saying. This is a person who would rather have his daughter’s brain chopped up than that she have her own life, but at that time he would have been considered the more acceptable of the two.

Nostalgia for the ‘50’s is a feeling that only part of the population can ever have; if you were not white, straight, Christian and male, with no serious disabilities, you would never choose to live in that era. Some movies have broken the fictional, Maybury-esque spell---Sam Raimi’s Revolutionary Road, arguably his greatest achievement, was as stark and as wounding a picture of the era’s hidden horrors as you’re ever likely to see. Yet the treatment of mental patients at the time seems to be in a no-go zone, unless it’s being dramatized for a horror film. That makes The Mountain worth seeing for anyone who doesn’t lionize mid-century America---or, perhaps, more urgently, for anyone who does.

Verdict: Highly Recommended

Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

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All images are property of the people what own the movie.

#jeff goldblum #the mountain #rick alverson #tye sheridan #movies #hannah gross

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thechampagnecircus · 4 years ago

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It’s Ok to Not be Ok

Let’s Paint a Picture. You log onto facebook, a feed of seamless vacations, angelic sleeping children followed by gushing sentiments, perfect family photos looking like they fell out of a J.Crew catalog flood your screen. That’s it, a silent groan bellows within you. You begin to compare yourself. You start to dissect your life, your worth. Stop. Stop it right now. News Flash: we all have our shit. Everyone has their struggles, their obstacles. Behind those picturesque moments, are probably some not so great ones. Here’s the thing. Share those joyous, happy and sometimes superficial occasions; celebrate them, relish them, savor them, they are important. I am as guilty as anyone, posting about the good things, so no judgement here. Hell, sometimes a good hair day is reason enough to shout from the rooftops. I am also not saying that revealing all our skeletons is the answer. Let’s not splatter our dirty laundry everywhere in an effort to balance the social media universe. I do believe lots of things should remain private, but today I’m feeling a little transparent. So why not run with it.

So, what’s driving my struggle bus lately? I am a hypochondriac with a splash of germaphobe. Actually the term hypochondriac is outdated and referred to simply as health anxiety, but I am not a doctor and you catch my drift. Those that know me well, will not be shocked by this confession. I don’t want to make light of it, but figured I might shine a little light in an effort to do my part in stopping the mental health stigma. Things may have come a long way from shock treatments, lobotomies and disappointment rooms, but there are still hurdles. Knowledge is power and with that comes strength in numbers. I repeat, we all have our stuff. This post is just a precursor to potential anxiety anecdotes of the future to demonstrate the frustrating, difficult, empowering and relatable moments I have experienced.

Anxiety is the proverbial roller coaster. Weaving through a track that is piloted by fear. I specifically suffer from a twisted helix of obsessive compulsive tendencies driven by said health anxiety. In a nutshell, it is hypochondria that leads to obsessive worry calmed by reassurance and ritual. You know the common stereotype of handwashing or flipping the light switch a certain number of times. We’ve all seen As Good As it Gets. I do not abide by those extreme or particular habits and although I use the title of OCD, not one-size-fits-all when it comes to these types of things. Over the years, it has mutated into not only a worry for myself but of those I care about. For me, the worst thing that I could ever imagine is something bad happening to the people I love. There is a symbiotic and masochistically infused relationship between love and fear that constitutes these dominating thoughts. This may sound intense, and some days it is. I have times when seemingly insignificant things can turn into an episode of mental waterboarding. However, I have found many coping mechanisms to help me, along with the courage to accept some level of anxiety can be a strength.

I have surmised, for me, it all stems from a need or lack of control. If I can control the mundane I can avoid the tragic. As if the second I let my guard down, that is when something will strike. I know deep down the universe doesn’t work that way, but I still want to be prepared for anything. This would explain why whenever we travel we have a full pharmacy with us; Vitamins, Emergen-c, Advil, Immodium, Benadryl, Gravol, Pepto Bismol, Gaviscon, Band-Aids, Aspirin, Tums, Dayquil, etc. Even in my everyday purse I do not leave the house without Pepto. This is rooted in a constant fear of getting diarrhea in a public forum with no remedy. But I digress. TMI, I apologize, but this is reality. If you are with me and having a stomach issue, I got you.

I always thought self awareness gave you power. If we can recognize the demon we can exorcise it. Unfortunately, it is never that cut and dry with health anxiety (or any mental issues for that matter). There needs to be a balance of awareness mixed with realistic deflection. The more life you give to an intrusive thought the larger it becomes. It is like a swirling tornado picking up more and more debris-like thoughts as it pillages your mind. The only way to calm the storm is to think rationally. A task that can feel impossible without practice. It reminds me of the movie Inception. Once we have a thought, it is immortal. That is why, acknowledging these anxieties trumps avoidance. We must accept them in order to move on from them. This is clinically known as CBT, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. While helpful, it takes consistency, habit and is a perpetual tool. If you are troubled by anxiety it is definitely worth a google.

I divulge this for those who also suffer a similar mindset. I know how crazy you can feel. How ashamed, how helpless. I am not in hysterics everyday. I do not dissect every miniscule detail of every situation looking for something to be afraid of, but some days are paralyzing. We must recognize these triggers and face them with practical ammunition. Not to sound cliche, but there is always a better day around the corner. Everyday I try to be better, stronger. I revel in the calm, joyful, effortless moments where anxiety is some long off memory of a past life. We are the hero of our own minds, no matter what ails us.

Bottom line. We all have troubles and health anxiety is one of mine. There should no longer be stigmas around mental strife. We can all benefit from transparency and therapy. Yep, I said it. I don’t care how well adjusted you think you are, you have stuff too. I don’t mean we all should have a standing shrink appointment but there is no scandal for reaching out when or if you need it. You are not weak. You are not alone. There is never shame in seeking help whether it is for something big, small or anything in between. That can be as simple as talking to family, a friend or someone you trust. We should all feel comfortable in our sometimes neurotic, angry, sad, nervous, grieving, manic, anxious, skin.

STOP THE STIGMA :)

#stop the stigma #its ok to not be ok #anxiety fighters #health anxiety #anxiety therapy #we all have our shit

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warrenhutchinsoniii · 7 years ago

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eye of the storm

“A scandal may be based on reality, the product of false allegations, or a mixture of both.”

In general, Warren’s father didn’t call him. Warren Charles Hutchinson the second was a Democratic senator for the state of California, his days consisted of meetings and committees and it didn’t leave much time for making unnecessary calls to his youngest son… Or at least, that was how Warren the younger saw it. His father didn’t feel the need to make time for him. Which was fine with him. So, when his cell phone rang while Warren was reviewing statutes that might help in the Brooke Taylor-Windham case, his brows knit, glancing over at Ella, sitting across from him. “I-It’s my father. I’ll, um, be right back. I gotta take this.” He said, stepping away and into his room, closing the door before he answered, fearing the worst. But even what he could imagine being the worst-case scenario wouldn’t encompass what his father was about to tell him…

“Hi, dad.” Warren greeted his father, keeping his voice calm, his tone even.

“Warren, good evening. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” His father’s words were clipped, but this was nothing new. Warren the elder always gave the impression that time was money. “I know you have been quite busy with this Windham case and I’d hate to keep you from valuable research or whatnot.”

“It’s fine. What’s going on?” Warren replied before he sighed a little, correcting himself to err on the side of politeness. “How-How are you? How goes Senate?”

“Senate is Senate. The current President keeps us quite busy, as I’m sure you hear on the news.” His father answered, and Warren could hear the clink of ice hitting the side of a highball glass. “And, of course, there’s the newest appointment of Pompeo to head the State Department… But I didn’t call you to discuss politics, son.”

A cold chill ran through Warren and he sat down on the side of his bed. His father was almost always too formal with him, so to hear himself called son was… Odd and made Warren on edge. The last time his father called him ‘son’ it was just after Warren had drunkenly crashed his car, and right before he was arrested for it and spent the night in jail.

There was a heavy sigh on the other end of the line before his father finally said: “I wanted to tell you before you hear about it in the papers… You have a sister, born out of wedlock… She’s… She’s the product of an affair I had about fifteen years ago.”

A sister?

Product of an affair?

Of course, it was always true what they said. A leopard doesn’t change its spots.

Warren couldn’t help but think of what he already knew. That he, too, was the product of an affair. His father had secured a hasty divorce from his first wife and mother of his three elder sons, Bunny Cartwright, when Warren’s mother, Veronika, was pregnant with him. Veronika and Warren the elder had eloped and six months later, Warren was born. His birth had been scandalous, itself. And yet somehow, the Hutchinson name still meant something to the people of the state of California because they’d named him senator four years later after his success in state courts and as District Attorney. Would this blow over, too? Blow over and just become another pithy sentence in his father’s Wikipedia entry?

Warren married Veronika Brazda in a civil ceremony in Los Angeles, California on April 7th, 1996. Their son, Warren Charles Hutchinson III was born at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, also in Los Angeles, on October 25th of the same year. The couple resides in Bel-Air.

“Warren? Are you still there?” His father’s voice came through the phone and it was as though Warren heard it through the din of white noise filling his mind.

“Y-yeah… A sister…” Warren echoed, his own voice sounding faint to his own ear. “Did you talk to my brothers?”

“I called Bennett in London this morning. Theo joined me for our normal breakfast, and I just spoke to Gregory. They… They understood what needs to happen.”

Ah, and therein was the catch.

“Right. ‘No comment.’” Warren said with a dry laugh. “Then at least tell me about her. Tell me about her mother. Who are they?”

There was silence from his father for a long moment. He could hear his father pour himself another glass of scotch. “Do you… Do you remember Grace Cutler? The housekeeper who retired a few years ago? She’s the mother. The girl is 15 and her name is Violet.”

Warren remembered Grace Cutler. She was young, being in her mid to late twenties when he first remembered meeting her. She had become their housekeeper when his father had first become elected, and Warren didn’t remember life before her. She had a sweet, wide face with freckles, blonde hair, and blue eyes. She was soft-spoken, shy, and dressed modestly, as he knew she was of the Mormon faith and originally from Utah. Grace was his first crush. He didn’t remember her being pregnant, but he remembered when one day, she brought her daughter to visit… A toddler with dark hair and dark eyes.

“How long have you known she is yours?” Warren finally asked, his voice sounded hoarse.

“Long enough. But that’s none of your concern.”

“None of my concern?” Warren echoed, his voice getting louder. “That’s bullshit and you and I both know that. If you knew about this and didn’t tell us, then that’s on you. Do you… Do you even understand how unfair this all is? Not just to me, but to her?” He wasn’t even sure which her he meant, be it his mother or this teenage girl who was apparently his sister.

His father sighed. “There’s no need to raise your voice at me… Your mother has left.”

“What do you mean she left?” Warren asked, almost choking on his own words. “Where the hell did she go?”

“She’s returned to Prague for the time being. We both agreed it was what would be for the best.”

“You’re unbelievable, Dad. You shipped her off to avoid dealing with how much this is going to hurt her. Did you even tell her about this?” Warren replied, his heart racing.

“I don’t need to explain myself nor the state of my marriage to anyone, least of all you.” His father answered, curtly. “But she knows… As does Bunny and everyone else in the family has been… Informed.”

“For fuck’s sake, I’m your son. You don’t need to talk to me like I’m with the press. But I hear you. You don’t want me to comment when people start calling me and e-mailing me, asking what I think. Fine. I’ll do what you want.”

“I know you’re not the press, but… I trust you’ll be discreet about who you talk to about this personal family issue.” His father’s choice of words betrayed what was to be inferred.

“Don’t say that to me.” Warren replied, his voice terse. “I know what you’re not saying, and you know that Ella has been nothing but discreet and respectful of the goings on behind closed doors since the day I first met her. She wouldn’t sell us out and I resent that you think she would.”

“Warren, those Hollywood types are notorious about spilling other peoples’ secrets. I just don’t want you to get hurt. Especially by the daughter of a soap opera star who thinks she has what it takes to be a lawyer.”

“No, no, that’s not okay for you to say. I don’t know why you can’t grasp the fact that she’s more than that. She is… So much more than you or I could ever say or think or even fathom. You don’t know how much she means to me. I love her. I am always going to love her. You don’t get to sit there and insult the woman I love, the woman who inspires me and pushes me to be the best man I can possibly be… Now, for my poor mother’s sake, I’m not going to talk to the press. But what you’ve done is… So wrong. You’ve kept me from someone who is family and that’s unacceptable. So, fuck you. Don’t call me again unless you suddenly get a fuckin’ lobotomy and have nice things to say to me.” Warren said, ending the call before his father could get another word in edgewise. Tossing his phone, it skittered off the side of his bed and under his dresser. “Fuck.” He sighed, resting his elbows on his knees and rubbing the palms of his hands into his eyes.

What in the hell was he to do about this? Warren certainly had no idea.

#thread: closed #almost 1500 words oops

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shirlleycoyle · 4 years ago

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How Mail Is Delivered During Natural Disasters

This article was sent on Tuesday to subscribers of The Mail, Motherboard’s pop-up newsletter about the USPS, election security, and democracy. Subscribe to get the next edition before it is published here, as well as exclusive articles and the paid zine.

Hey everyone, welcome to another edition of The Mail. Before we get started, two quick announcements.

First, we're getting the zine ready for the printer, which means this is your last chance to sign up if you want to get it, and I really think you will. Here’s a preview:

Zine preview

I can’t wait to get my copy. Make sure you get yours by clicking the button below.

Second, our colleagues at Waypoint are doing their annual fundraiser called Savepoint to raise funds for National Bailout. You can read more about it here, but basically it's a gameathon to raise money. The whole shebang will be broadcast on Waypoint's Twitch channel. I will be joining Motherboard's Editor-in-Chief Jason Koebler on Wednesday at 3 p.m. Eastern to talk about post office things. Hope you can join us!

Ed Curzon had two minutes to get out. It was the morning of October 8, 2017 in Santa Rosa, California, and he awoke to the smell of smoke and the sight of glowing orange embers blowing in the wind. The houses across the street were on fire.

"So think of everything in two minutes that you'd want to take from your home, and that's pretty much what we took," Curzon said in an interview for a National Letter Carriers Association documentary about the fires. "We got the dogs, each other, a pillow and a blanket, our cell phones, our IDs, and that's about as much time as we had to get out."

Curzon's home of 29 years burned down that day, along with virtually all the homes in Coffey Park, a neighborhood in Santa Rosa. It was the hardest hit neighborhood in the hardest hit city of the most destructive wildfire in California history up to that point.

Curzon was one of 13 letter carriers in Santa Rosa who lost their homes. The fires continued to burn in the city for more than a week, filling the air with smoke and ash. But just a few days after losing his house, Curzon went back to work.

Jerry Andersen, president of the NALC Branch 183 in Santa Rosa, told Motherboard recently that Curzon wasn't the only one who went back to work despite losing so much. "We asked them why they were coming in and they said 'I don't have anything to do.' And they felt they had their duty to deliver the mail."

It may seem odd that letter carriers felt the need to deliver mail while fires were still burning. After all, it was 2017. Many Americans—especially ones in Santa Rosa, not far from the Bay Area and Silicon Valley—probably believe everything important happens online or, at worst, over the phone. In a disaster, do people really need their mail?

According to FEMA, the answer is yes. Delivering mail is considered a "Primary Mission Essential Function," meaning it must be resumed within 12 hours of any emergency event.

The reason for this is simple. People impacted by hurricanes, wildfires, blizzards, flooding, and pandemics need things, whether it be food, medicine, clothes, blankets, or any number of other physical objects to stay alive and begin the process of rebuilding their lives. The post office brings these things to people. And, through tools like mail forwarding, it keeps track of where people are in a way no other federal agency can.

Not only do Americans in distress need their mail, but they need their mail carriers, who have unparalleled local knowledge about their neighborhoods and the people who live there.

That's one of the reasons Curzon went back to work while the remains of his home were still smoldering. In the documentary, he explained "I don't know why I went to work, but I have a lot of elderly people on my route and some special needs people and there was such a lack of communication. There was smoke everywhere, there was a lot of confusion on the streets. Half of me wanted to run away from this problem and the other half wanted to make sure some of those people are going to be OK."

Some carriers in Santa Rosa returned to their routes only to find virtually all of the homes along it were no longer there. One carrier had 293 homes along her route before the fire. Afterwards, there were only 18 still standing. As Curzon demonstrated, they know which families are especially vulnerable and need to be sought out for emergency care.

Not only do postal workers go back to work sooner than anyone else in the face of disaster, but they keep working through conditions most others wouldn't tolerate. There has perhaps never been a more illustrative year than the one we are currently living through. Through the pandemic, hurricanes, and now historic wildfires burning across the west, the USPS has, for the most part, continued to deliver the mail.

Of course, you won't see any LLV delivery trucks plowing through flames (unless, of course, the flames are coming from the truck itself). The USPS does, in fact, stop delivering mail when conditions become unsafe. For example, when local authorities issue evacuation orders for wildfires or hurricanes, postal workers leave, too.

In fact, where the USPS has stopped delivering mail is about as good of a snapshot as you'll get of where in America is currently in a desperate crisis. The USPS National Map is a kind of Down Detector for the post office. It shows which of the USPS's 32,000-plus facilities are experiencing limited or no service due to issues ranging from power outages, maintenance issues, and natural disasters along with NOAA map overlays. As of Monday early afternoon, the map looked like this:

USPS service status map. Screenshot: USPS National Map

As you can see, there are a lot of closed post offices where Tropical Storm Sally is making landfall in the Gulf Coast and along the wildfires in the west. In most of those areas, delivery is suspended as well. You can find a full list of residential service disruptions at the USPS's website here.

It is impossible to write about the post office delivering (or not) in harsh conditions without mentioning its unofficial motto "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." This sentence—written by Herodotus about the couriers ferrying news during the Persian Wars of 500 B.C—is inscribed on the majestic James A. Farley post office complex in Manhattan (which was also, somewhat ironically given the inscription, the epicenter of the 1970 postal workers strike). But the USPS's official mission statement reads as if Herodotus got a lobotomy:

The Postal Service shall have as its basic function the obligation to provide postal services to bind the Nation together through the personal, educational, literary, and business correspondence of the people. It shall provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services to patrons in all areas and shall render postal services to all communities.

For the countless times I've had postal workers recite Herodotus's words back to me or seen the sentence cited in some scholarly or literary work about the post office, I have never heard anyone mention its "mission statement." Hardly surprising, really, I just typed the sentence and can barely even remember it.

But I don't think it's just because Herodotus's words are easier to remember and more poetic. In one sentence, it provides what every corporate mission statement fails to achieve. It inspires people, or at the very least reminds them of a profound sense of purpose.

And many postal workers latch onto that inspiration. Working through wildfires in particular, where health officials tell people to stay indoors as much as they possibly can, is a physically taxing experience. For example, Portland, Oregon is experiencing some of the worst air quality the country has ever seen at the moment, but postal workers are still making their deliveries.

I spoke to one letter carrier there who described the city as "apocalyptic" right now. When he's gotten off of work the last few days, he has a layer of grit all over his skin, needs to stick a q-tip up his nostrils to get the black smut out, and has a blistering headache. The N95 masks only do so much. He said the smoky air is much worse than other extreme weather like heat waves or ice storms, because you can take a break from those. But not the wildfires. "I don't think I'd ever get used to this," he said. "Every single second I'm out in this stuff, all I can think is I can't wait for this to be over."

When disaster strikes, we look for robustness. We look for the big structures that won't blow away in the storm, the concrete fire-resistant gymnasiums, the places we expect to survive, and we count on them to see us through the worst of it. We look for the people who respond well in crisis, who know what to do when times are tough, who react quickly, decisively, and knowledgeably. So, too, do we look for robust institutions to help us get back on our feet. Not the ones that deliver to us only if it is profitable or easy, but the ones that are here for us every day, that endure. And, despite everything that has happened to the post office over the years and decades, there is still no American institution more robust than the post office.

In the documentary about Santa Rosa, Andersen used a phrase I have been thinking about a lot when reading the news coverage about the current wildfires. He said that once the first responders like the EMTs, firefighters, and police move on to the next tragedy, the post office workers are "the second responders. We're there and showing people hey, we're back, and we're going to make this right."

This has been a year for second responders, the ones who quietly make life possible. The post office is far from a perfect institution, but in times of trouble, we seek normalcy. And there is nothing more normal, nothing more routine, than getting the mail.

When I spoke to Andersen about all this, he said after the Santa Rosa fires, he noticed something strange. He doesn't know how to explain it, but even in neighborhoods entirely wiped out by the fires, where every single house burned down, one thing seemed to still be standing in front of every lot. For some reason, the mailboxes were still there.

The Week In Mail

Mail-in voting news:

My colleagues at VICE put together a guide on how to vote by mail in all 50 states.

Many states have harsh penalties for anyone who double votes, as Trump has encouraged his supporters to do. In Georgia, the Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is alleging hundreds if not thousands of Georgians did exactly that in the June primary, although he hasn't presented any evidence of it yet. Either way, it's worth noting here how easily someone could accidentally vote twice if election officials screw up. Let's say you send in your vote-by-mail ballot, but then go to the polls just to make sure your vote was counted, only to find it wasn't, so you vote in person, because election officials mistakenly didn't relay to the poll workers your vote had been tallied. Is that a crime? Raffensperger says yes: "“At the end of the day, the voter was responsible and the voters know what they were doing. A double voter knows exactly what they were doing, diluting the votes of each and every voter that follows the law.”

Colorado sued the USPS over a vote-by-mail information postcard being sent to every residential address in the country. On Saturday, a judge issued a restraining order against the USPS from sending the postcards out in that state. The state's argument is that the postcard contains misinformation because it tells voters to request a ballot at least 15 days before the election, but a handful of states like Colorado automatically mail a ballot to every voter. The judge ruled the postcard is likely to confuse voters and therefore should not be sent. I must admit, of all the things that could potentially cause "irreparable harm" to the voting process in Colorado or any state, this postcard seems low on the risk list to me. The bullet point above the one Colorado took issue with says "Rules and dates vary by state, so contact your election board to confirm.” It then directs people to the url usps.com/votinginfo, which is little more than a portal to your state election website. Even if someone completely misinterprets the postcard into thinking they have to request a ballot when they don’t, all they will do is go online and see that they don’t have to request a ballot. Considering all the insane rhetoric about vote-by-mail coming from the White House all the way down, does anyone really believe this is what will confuse people? If nothing else, this goes to show just how poorly the USPS works with states on vote-by-mail issues. The lawsuit is here and the postcard is on the third page.

USPS news:

A Senate report found mail-order pharmacies reported an increase in average delivery times between 18-32 percent in the summer. Good thing no one relies on prompt delivery of…medicine?

“This man is doing a tremendous job,” USPS Republican board member John Barger said of DeJoy last week. Similarly, the USPS says service is continuing to improve without acknowledging why it tanked to begin with.

The USPS is refusing to release DeJoy's calendars for completely bullshit reasons because the calendars of public officials are public documents under the Freedom of Information Act. The courts will eventually force them to do this, but probably not until well after the election.

My Motherboard colleague Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai reported on a potentially catastrophic security vulnerability that the USPS Inspector General found had been hiding in their computer systems for years. USPS says they fixed it. I asked Lorenzo what he thought about this story and he said "Government systems tend to be shittily maintained but this could have been really bad."

Little known fact: “Mr. Trump entered the White House when not a single [USPS] board member was in place — Republicans had blocked all of President Barack Obama’s nominees — and as its long-term fiscal viability was increasingly in doubt.”

Postcards

We have received more than 50 postcards! Thank you so much to everyone who has sent them in. In addition to featuring some here, we’re including many more in the zine. So keep ‘em coming!

And, as a reminder, we'll be doing a snail mailbag at some point in the future, so if you have questions feel free to start mailing them in.

Our address is:

VICE Media c/o Aaron Gordon 49 S 2nd St. Brooklyn, NY 11211

Postcard

I couldn't capture the holographic element of the T.rex stamp, but I can assure you it was indeed sick. Also, I hate to disappoint J. but I do not have any cool stamps. I bought a bunch of the frog forever stamps for my personal correspondence, but I'm looking to get some better ones.

See you next week,

Aaron

How Mail Is Delivered During Natural Disasters syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

0 notes

northerntr4sh · 7 years ago

Text

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1 note · View note

paullassiterca · 6 years ago

Text

What Does the ‘Best Evidence’ Say About Antidepressants?

According to the latest statistics,1 17.3 million American adults (7.1 percent of the adult U.S. population) and 3.2 million adolescents (13.3 percent of U.S. population aged 12 to 17) suffered at least one major depressive episode in 2017.

Depression can interfere with personal and work relationships, reduce work or academic performance and affect physical health by impairing your ability to properly care for yourself and make good health decisions, including decisions about nutrition and sleep. Imbalances in nutrition, weight fluctuations and poor sleep habits may in turn compromise your immune function.2

The condition can also be lethal, as depression is a contributing factor in up to 70 percent of all suicides.3 In 2016, 44,965 Americans committed suicide.4 Depression can also lead to self-harming behaviors such as drug or alcohol abuse,5 and 90 percent of people who struggle with suicidal thoughts experience a combination of depression and substance abuse.6

Unfortunately, antidepressant drugs — the most widely used therapy for depression — are also among the least effective. In fact, statistics suggest that far from being helpful, psychiatric drugs are making the situation worse.

According to research7,8 published in February 2017, 16.7 percent of the 242 million U.S. adults (aged 18 to 85) included in the survey reported filling at least one prescription for a psychiatric drug in 2013.

Twelve percent reported using an antidepressant; 8.3 percent used anxiolytics, sedatives and hypnotics; and 1.6 percent used antipsychotics. With nearly 17 percent of the adult population in the U.S. taking psychiatric drugs, it would be prudent to evaluate the larger ramifications of these types of medications.

Sadly, statistics overwhelmingly fail to support their use, yet they continue to be the leading form of treatment.

Medication Madness — A Psychiatrist Speaks Out

youtube

In a recent segment of Full Measure (above), award-winning investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson interviewed psychiatrist and director of the International Center for Patient-Oriented Psychiatry, Dr. Peter Breggin. He is known to many as “the conscience of psychiatry,” as he was instrumental in preventing the return of lobotomy as a psychiatric treatment in the early 1970s.

Breggin is also the author of “Medication Madness,” in which he details the many hazards of psychiatric drugs. In his 50 years of practice, he has never placed a patient on drugs. In fact, he specializes in getting people off them, and wrote a book on psychiatric drug withdrawal, “Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal: A Guide for Prescribers, Therapists, Patients and Their Families.”9

When asked what he thinks people don’t know about psychiatric treatment, and ought to, Breggin responds, “They don’t know that all psychiatric drugs are neurotoxins. They don’t know that they aren’t correcting biochemical imbalances, they are causing biochemical imbalances.”

Prozac was the first selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1987.10 Over the years, Prozac became the target of a number of lawsuits, as patients suffered all sorts of ill effects, from birth defects to suicide and serotonin syndrome, a condition caused by excess serotonin in the brain, leading to agitation, confusion, high blood pressure and more.11

Already by 1996, 35,000 complaints about the drug had been lodged with the FDA.12 In the early 1990s, Breggin was appointed by a federal court as the medical and scientific expert for the plaintiffs in all combined lawsuits facing Eli Lilly with regard to Prozac, a role that gave him access to corporate records.13 Breggin tells Attkisson:14

“Prozac … had amphetamine affects. The chief investigators said and wrote, ‘this drug has amphetamine like effects. We need to put this into the label. It can make depression worse, can make people agitated, make them angry, might increase the suicide rate,’ but the FDA wouldn’t allow onto the label what it’s chief investigator into adverse effects was telling them.

So, from the beginning, it was all a house of cards. And, as for it’s being useful, I looked it over, carefully analyzed the statistics and said the drug actually doesn’t work. It’s about as good as placebo.

Now, placebo will help anywhere between 40 and 80 percent of people, so it’s a huge effect and that especially with depression, because depression is not about a biochemical imbalance. It’s about hopelessness. Depression is part of the human experience.”

In Breggin’s view, “There is no promising medical treatment and probably there never can be,” for the simple reason that depression is primarily rooted in the complexity of human emotions and experiences. He believes one needs to avoid numbing and escapist behaviors such as drug and alcohol use, and implement strategies to support healthy brain function instead, in order to “be able to deal with your issues.”

Contrary to Popular Opinion, Antidepressants Don’t Work

youtube

Download Interview Transcript

In 2010, I interviewed medical journalist and Pulitzer Prize nominee Robert Whitaker about the use of psychiatric drugs, as he has written two books on this topic. I’ve included that interview again for your convenience. In it, Whitaker details the science showing antidepressants don’t work — and what actually does.

The available science has also brought Jacob Stegenga, a philosophy of science lecturer at the University of Cambridge and author of “Medical Nihilism,” to the same conclusion. In a recent essay, he notes:15

“Diving into the details of how antidepressant data are generated, analyzed and reported tells us that these drugs are barely effective, if at all … The best evidence about the effectiveness of antidepressants comes from randomized trials and meta-analyses of these trials.

The vast majority of these studies are funded and controlled by the manufacturers of antidepressants, which is an obvious conflict of interest. These trials often last only weeks — far less than the duration that most people are on antidepressants.

The subjects in these trials are selected carefully, typically excluding patients who are elderly, who have other diseases, or who are on several other drugs — in other words, the very kinds of people who are often prescribed antidepressants — which means that extrapolating the evidence from these trials to real patients is unreliable.

The trials that generate evidence seeming to support antidepressants get published, while trials that generate evidence suggesting that antidepressants are ineffective often remain unpublished …

To give one prominent example, in 2012 the U.K. pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline pleaded guilty to criminal charges for promoting the use of its antidepressant Paxil in children (there was no evidence that it was effective in children), and for misreporting trial data … When analyzed properly, the best evidence indicates that antidepressants are not clinically beneficial.

What Does the ‘Best Evidence’ Say About Antidepressants?

While some psychiatric drugs may be helpful for a small minority of people with very severe mental health problems, such as schizophrenia, it’s quite clear that a vast majority of people using these drugs do not suffer from the type of psychiatric illnesses that might warrant their prudent use.

Most are struggling with sadness, grief, anxiety, “the blues” and depression, which are in many ways part of your body’s communication system, revealing nutritional or sunlight deficiencies and/or spiritual disconnect, for example.

The underlying reasons for these kinds of troubles are manifold, but you can be sure that, whatever the cause, an antidepressant will not correct it. In fact, as noted by Breggin, studies16,17,18 have repeatedly shown antidepressants work no better than placebo for mild to moderate depression.

Irving Kirsch, associate director of the Program in Placebo Studies at Harvard Medical School, has conducted several meta-analyses of antidepressants in comparison to placebo, concluding there’s virtually no difference in their effectiveness. According to Kirsch, “The difference is so small, it’s not of any clinical importance.”19 For example:

In a 1998 meta-analysis20 that looked at 19 double-blind studies, Kirsch and colleagues noted that:

“These data indicate that virtually all of the variation in drug effect size was due to the placebo characteristics of the studies.

The effect size for active medications that are not regarded to be antidepressants was as large as that for those classified as antidepressants, and in both cases, the inactive placebos produced improvement that was 75 percent of the effect of the active drug. These data raise the possibility that the apparent drug effect (25 percent of the drug response) is actually an active placebo effect.”

Research published in 2008 found major discrepancies between published and unpublished research makes antidepressants appear far more beneficial and effective than the sum total of the research actually reveals them to be. Of 74 FDA-registered studies, 31 percent were never published.

As noted by the authors, “According to the published literature, it appeared that 94 percent of the trials conducted were positive. By contrast, the FDA analysis showed that 51 percent were positive … Selective reporting of clinical trial results may have adverse consequences for researchers, study participants, health care professionals and patients.”

A 2010 meta-analysis21 concluded that “The magnitude of benefit of antidepressant medication compared with placebo increases with severity of depression symptoms and may be minimal or nonexistent, on average, in patients with mild or moderate symptoms.”

In a 2011 paper,22 Kirsch notes that six-week trials have a higher success rate than eight-week trials — 55 versus 42 percent — which suggests long-term use of antidepressants is likely ineffective.

In a 2014 paper,23 Kirsch notes that “analyses of the published data and the unpublished data that were hidden by drug companies reveals that most (if not all) of the benefits are due to the placebo effect.” In this paper, he notes that two of his earlier meta-analyses24,25 actually revealed that when both published and unpublished trials were included, the placebo response accounted for a whopping 82 percent of the beneficial response to antidepressants.

A major benefit of evaluating FDA trial data was that all of the trials used the same primary measure of depression, which made the drug-to-placebo effects very easy to identify and compare. The primary measure of depression used in these studies was the Hamilton depression scale, a 17-item scale with a possible score of 0 to 53 points.

The higher your score, the more severe your depression. Importantly, the mean difference between antidepressants and placebo was less than 2 points (1.8) on this scale. To illustrate just how insignificant of a difference this is, you can score a 6-point difference simply by changing sleep patterns without any reported change in other depressive symptoms.

Simply fidgeting less results in a 4-point decrease in your depression score, so as noted by Stegenga in his essay,26 “a drug that simply made people sleep better and fidget less could lower one’s depression score by 10 points.”

What’s more, clinical guidelines in the U.K. require antidepressants to lower depression scores by a mere 3 points, 27 and this too reveals why and how the benefits of antidepressants have been overestimated and oversold.

Most recently, a 2017 systematic review with meta-analysis and trial sequential analysis of 131 placebo-controlled studies found that “all trials were at high risk of bias and the clinical significance seems questionable. SSRIs significantly increase the risk of both serious and non-serious adverse events. The potential small beneficial effects seem to be outweighed by harmful effects.”

None of the trials, even when reporting a positive result, met the threshold for clinical significance of 3 points on the depression score.

Long-Term, Antidepressant Users Fare Much Worse

What’s more, research has shown that patients who do not take antidepressants fare better in the long term compared to those taking drugs,28 and research29 comparing exercise and drug treatment for depression suggests those not taking drugs have a lower risk of relapse. This risk is also addressed in Kirsch’s 2014 paper30 on antidepressants and the placebo effect.

“The serotonin theory is as close as any theory in the history of science to having been proved wrong. Instead of curing depression, popular antidepressants may induce a biological vulnerability making people more likely to become depressed in the future,” Kirsch writes.

Known Side Effects of Antidepressants

In addition to not working better than placebo, antidepressants also come with a long list of potential side effects, which include but are not limited to:31,32

Worsening depression

Self-harm, violence and suicide

Increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes,33 even after adjusting for risk factors such as body mass index34

Thickening of the greater carotid intima-media (the lining of the main arteries in your neck that feed blood to your brain),35 which could contribute to the risk of heart disease and stroke. This was true both for SSRIs and antidepressants that affect other brain chemicals

An increased risk of heart attack, specifically for users of tricyclic antidepressants, who have a 36 percent increased risk of heart attack36

An increased risk of dementia; as the dose increases, so does the risk for dementia37

Depletion of various nutrients, including coenzyme Q10 and vitamin B12 — in the case of tricyclic antidepressants — which are needed for proper mitochondrial function. SSRIs have been linked to iodine and folate depletion38

Depression Treatments That Actually Work

If you’re at all interested in following science-based recommendations, you’d place antidepressants at the very bottom of your list of treatment candidates. Far more effective treatments for depression include:

Exercise — A number of studies have shown exercise outperforms drug treatment. Exercise helps create new GABA-producing neurons that help induce a natural state of calm, and boosts serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine, which helps buffer the effects of stress.

Studies have shown there is a strong correlation between improved mood and aerobic capacity, but even gentle forms of exercise can be effective. Yoga, for example, has received particular attention in a number of studies. One study found 90-minute yoga sessions three times a week reduced symptoms of major depression by at least 50 percent.39

Nutritional intervention — Keeping inflammation in check is an important part of any effective treatment plan. If you’re gluten sensitive, you will need to remove all gluten from your diet. A food sensitivity test can help ascertain this. Reducing lectins may also be a good idea.

As a general guideline, eating a whole food diet as described in my optimal nutrition plan can go a long way toward lowering your inflammation level. A cornerstone of a healthy diet is limiting sugar of all kinds, ideally to no more than 25 grams a day.

In one study,40 men consuming more than 67 grams of sugar per day were 23 percent more likely to develop anxiety or depression over the course of five years than those whose sugar consumption was less than 40 grams per day. Certain nutritional deficiencies are also notorious contributors to depression, especially:

Marine-based omega-3 fats — Omega-3 fats have been shown to improve major depressive disorder,41 so make sure you’re getting enough omega-3s in your diet, either from wild Alaskan salmon, sardines, herring, mackerel and anchovies, or a high-quality supplement. I recommend getting an omega-3 index test to make sure you’re getting enough. Ideally, you want your omega-3 index to be 8 percent or higher.

B vitamins (including B1, B2, B3, B6, B9 and B12) — Low dietary folate can raise your risk by as much as 300 percent.42,43 One of the most recent studies44,45 showing the importance of vitamin deficiencies in depression involved suicidal teens. Most turned out to be deficient in cerebral folate and all of them showed improvement after treatment with folinic acid.

Magnesium — Magnesium supplements led to improvements in mild-to-moderate depression in adults, with beneficial effects occurring within two weeks of treatment.46

Vitamin D — Studies have shown vitamin D deficiency can predispose you to depression and that depression can respond favorably to optimizing your vitamin D stores, ideally by getting sensible sun exposure.47,48 In one study,49 people with a vitamin D level below 20 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL) had an 85 percent increased risk of depression compared to those with a level greater than 30 ng/mL.

A double-blind randomized trial50 published in 2008 concluded that supplementing with high doses of vitamin D “seems to ameliorate [depression] symptoms indicating a possible causal relationship.”Recent research51 also claims that low vitamin D levels appear to be associated with suicide attempts. For optimal health, make sure your vitamin D level is between 60 and 80 ng/mL year-round. Ideally, get a vitamin D test at least twice a year to monitor your level.

Light therapy — Light therapy alone and placebo were both more effective than Prozac for the treatment of moderate to severe depression in an eight-weeklong study.52 Spending time outdoors in broad daylight is the least expensive and likely most effective option.

Probiotics — Keeping your gut microbiome healthy also has a significant effect on your moods, emotions and brain. You can read more in my previous article, “Mental Health May Depend on the Health of Your Gut Flora.”

Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) — EFT is a form of psychological acupressure that has been shown to be quite effective for depression and anxiety.53,54,55,56 For serious or complex issues, seek out a qualified health care professional who is trained in EFT to guide you through the process.

That said, for most of you with depression symptoms, this is a technique you can learn to do effectively on your own. In the video below, EFT practitioner Julie Schiffman shows you how.

youtube

Other Helpful Treatment Strategies

Here are several additional strategies that can help improve your mental health:57

Minimize electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure — In 2016, Martin Pall, Ph.D., published a review 58 in the Journal of Neuroanatomy showing how microwave radiation from cellphones, Wi-Fi routers and computers and tablets not in airplane mode is clearly associated with many neuropsychiatric disorders.

These electromagnetic fields (EMFs) increase intracellular calcium and trigger the production of extremely damaging free radicals by acting on your voltage gated calcium channels (VGCCs), and the tissue with the highest density of VGCCs is your brain. Once these VGCCs are stimulated they also cause the release of neurotransmitters and neuroendocrine hormones, which contribute not only to anxiety and depression but also neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.

So, if you struggle with anxiety or depression, be sure to limit your exposure to wireless technology. Simple measures include turning your Wi-Fi off at night, not carrying your cellphone on your body unless it’s in airplane mode, and not keeping portable phones, cellphones and other electric devices in your bedroom.

Clean up your sleep hygiene — Make sure you’re getting enough high quality sleep, as sleep is essential for optimal mood and mental health. The inability to fall asleep and stay asleep can be due to elevated cortisol levels, so if you have trouble sleeping, you may want to get your saliva cortisol level tested with an Adrenal Stress Index test.

Adaptogens, herbal products that help lower cortisol and adjust your body to stress, can be helpful if your cortisol is running high. There are also other excellent herbs and amino acids that help you to fall asleep and stay asleep. For more tips and guidelines, see “Sleep — Why You Need It and 50 Ways to Improve It.”

Optimize your gut health — A number of studies have confirmed gastrointestinal inflammation can play a critical role in the development of depression.59 Optimizing your gut microbiome will also help regulate a number of neurotransmitters and mood-related hormones, including GABA and corticosterone, resulting in reduced anxiety and depression-related behavior.60

To nourish your gut microbiome, be sure to eat plenty of fresh vegetables and traditionally fermented foods such as fermented vegetables, lassi, kefir and natto. If you do not eat fermented foods on a regular basis, taking a high-quality probiotic supplement is recommended. Also remember to severely limit sugars and grains, to rebalance your gut flora.

Visualization — Visualization and guided imagery have been used for decades by elite athletes before an event, successful business people and cancer patients — all to achieve better results through convincing your mind you have already achieved successful results.61,62 Similar success has been found in people with depression.63

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) — CBT has been used successfully to treat depression.64,65 This therapy assumes mood is related to the pattern of thought. CBT attempts to change mood and reverse depression by directing your thought patterns.

Make sure your cholesterol levels aren’t too low for optimal mental health — You may also want to check your cholesterol to make sure it’s not too low. Low cholesterol is linked to dramatically increased rates of suicide, as well as aggression toward others. 66

This increased expression of violence toward self and others may be due to the fact that low membrane cholesterol decreases the number of serotonin receptors in the brain, which are approximately 30 percent cholesterol by weight.

Lower serum cholesterol concentrations therefore may contribute to decreasing brain serotonin, which not only contributes to suicidal-associated depression, but prevents the suppression of aggressive behavior and violence toward self and others.

Ecotherapy — Studies have confirmed the therapeutic effects of spending time in nature. Ecotherapy has been shown to lower stress, improve mood and significantly reduce symptoms of depression.67 Outdoor activities could be just about anything, from walking a nature trail to gardening, or simply taking your exercise outdoors.

Breathing exercises — Breath work such as the Buteyko breathing technique also has enormous psychological benefits and can quickly reduce anxiety by increasing the partial pressure of carbon dioxide in your body.

Helpful supplements — A number of herbs and supplements can be used in lieu of drugs to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. These include:

St. John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum) — This medicinal plant has a long historical use for depression, and is thought to work similarly to antidepressants, raising brain chemicals associated with mood such as serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline.68

S-Adenosyl methionine (SAMe) — SAMe is an amino acid derivative that occurs naturally in all cells. It plays a role in many biological reactions by transferring its methyl group to DNA, proteins, phospholipids and biogenic amines. Several scientific studies indicate that SAMe may be useful in the treatment of depression.

5-Hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP) — 5-HTP is another natural alternative to traditional antidepressants. When your body sets about manufacturing serotonin, it first makes 5-HTP. Taking 5-HTP as a supplement may raise serotonin levels. Evidence suggests 5-HTP outperforms a placebo when it comes to alleviating depression,69 which is more than can be said about antidepressants.

XingPiJieYu — This Chinese herb, available from doctors of traditional Chinese medicine, has been found to reduce the effects of “chronic and unpredictable stress,” thereby lowering your risk of depression.70

Guidelines for Safe Drug Withdrawal

If you’re currently on an antidepressant and want to get off it, ideally, you’ll want to have the cooperation of your prescribing physician. It would also be wise to do some homework on how to best proceed.

Breggin’s book, “Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal: A Guide for Prescribers, Therapists, Patients and Their Families,”71 and/or “The Antidepressant Solution: A Step-by-Step Guide to Overcoming Antidepressant Withdrawal, Dependence, and Addiction”72 by Dr. Joseph Glenmullen can be helpful.

You can also turn to an organization with a referral list of doctors who practice more biologically or naturally, such as the American College for Advancement in Medicine at www.acam.org. A holistic psychiatrist will have a number of treatment options in their tool box that conventional doctors do not, and will typically be familiar with nutritional supplementation.

Once you have the cooperation of your prescribing physician, start lowering the dosage of the medication you’re taking. There are protocols for gradually reducing the dose that your doctor should be well aware of. At the same time, it may be wise to add in a multivitamin and/or other nutritional supplements or herbs. Again, your best bet would be to work with a holistic psychiatrist who is well-versed in the use of nutritional support.

If you have a friend or family member who struggles with depression, perhaps one of the most helpful things you can do is to help guide them toward healthier eating and lifestyle habits, as making changes can be particularly difficult when you’re feeling blue — or worse, suicidal.

Encourage them to unplug and meet you outside for walks. We should not underestimate the power of human connection, and the power of connection with nature. Both, I believe, are essential for mental health and emotional stability.

If you are feeling desperate or have any thoughts of suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, a toll-free number: 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or call 911, or simply go to your nearest hospital emergency department. You cannot make long-term plans for lifestyle changes when you are in the middle of a crisis.

from Articles http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/04/04/antidepressants-health-risks.aspx source https://niapurenaturecom.tumblr.com/post/183930879546

0 notes

jerrytackettca · 6 years ago

Text

What Does the Best Evidence Say About Antidepressants?

Sadly, statistics overwhelmingly fail to support their use, yet they continue to be the leading form of treatment.

Medication Madness — A Psychiatrist Speaks Out

When asked what he thinks people don’t know about psychiatric treatment, and ought to, Breggin responds, “They don’t know that all psychiatric drugs are neurotoxins. They don't know that they aren't correcting biochemical imbalances, they are causing biochemical imbalances.”

“Prozac … had amphetamine affects. The chief investigators said and wrote, ‘this drug has amphetamine like effects. We need to put this into the label. It can make depression worse, can make people agitated, make them angry, might increase the suicide rate,’ but the FDA wouldn't allow onto the label what it's chief investigator into adverse effects was telling them.

So, from the beginning, it was all a house of cards. And, as for it's being useful, I looked it over, carefully analyzed the statistics and said the drug actually doesn't work. It's about as good as placebo.

Now, placebo will help anywhere between 40 and 80 percent of people, so it's a huge effect and that especially with depression, because depression is not about a biochemical imbalance. It's about hopelessness. Depression is part of the human experience.”

Contrary to Popular Opinion, Antidepressants Don’t Work

Download Interview Transcript

The trials that generate evidence seeming to support antidepressants get published, while trials that generate evidence suggesting that antidepressants are ineffective often remain unpublished …

What Does the ‘Best Evidence’ Say About Antidepressants?

In a 1998 meta-analysis20 that looked at 19 double-blind studies, Kirsch and colleagues noted that:

“These data indicate that virtually all of the variation in drug effect size was due to the placebo characteristics of the studies.

None of the trials, even when reporting a positive result, met the threshold for clinical significance of 3 points on the depression score.

Long-Term, Antidepressant Users Fare Much Worse

Known Side Effects of Antidepressants

In addition to not working better than placebo, antidepressants also come with a long list of potential side effects, which include but are not limited to:31,32

Worsening depression

Self-harm, violence and suicide

Increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes,33 even after adjusting for risk factors such as body mass index34

An increased risk of heart attack, specifically for users of tricyclic antidepressants, who have a 36 percent increased risk of heart attack36

An increased risk of dementia; as the dose increases, so does the risk for dementia37

Depression Treatments That Actually Work

Marine-based omega-3 fats — Omega-3 fats have been shown to improve major depressive disorder,41 so make sure you're getting enough omega-3s in your diet, either from wild Alaskan salmon, sardines, herring, mackerel and anchovies, or a high-quality supplement. I recommend getting an omega-3 index test to make sure you’re getting enough. Ideally, you want your omega-3 index to be 8 percent or higher.

Magnesium — Magnesium supplements led to improvements in mild-to-moderate depression in adults, with beneficial effects occurring within two weeks of treatment.46

That said, for most of you with depression symptoms, this is a technique you can learn to do effectively on your own. In the video below, EFT practitioner Julie Schiffman shows you how.

Other Helpful Treatment Strategies

Here are several additional strategies that can help improve your mental health:57

Make sure your cholesterol levels aren't too low for optimal mental health — You may also want to check your cholesterol to make sure it’s not too low. Low cholesterol is linked to dramatically increased rates of suicide, as well as aggression toward others. 66

Helpful supplements — A number of herbs and supplements can be used in lieu of drugs to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. These include:

Guidelines for Safe Drug Withdrawal

from http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/04/04/antidepressants-health-risks.aspx

source http://niapurenaturecom.weebly.com/blog/what-does-the-best-evidence-say-about-antidepressants

0 notes

cranberrybogmummy · 6 years ago

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The Olivia Black-Flash chronicles. NO plot only characters and setting

So Olivia Black-Flash (b. 1901 -d 1989) or should I say Dr. Olivia Black-Flash daughter of two of England’s most Blighted families the Blackadders (most branches go by BLACK by now) and FLASHMAN. Combining the two into one double barreled Black-Flash.

Olivia came from there cadet branch. She is short trim, dark haired and gray eyed. When she was young woman, she wore her hair in a bob. However as she aged she grew it out into and twisted it into respectable tight bun. She wears silver wire rimmed spectacles, and has a large nose. She was raised in London and in the country estate of Widdershins manor, in ….ummmm Little CheeseMould, in Rural Yorkshire. Her mother Griselda daughter of the famous Harry Flashman, Her father Edwin,a second son of a second son with AMBITION.. He became a n MP…. She was middle child of three. Her eldest brother (1890-1915 Fred died in the Great War. Younger brother Gawain, was pretty awful bright young thing in his younger years and as close to being nazi sympathizer, without actually liking the nazis. Fred well it’s good he’s dead. Also Widdershins hall (which they bought) ‘accidentally’ burnt down before any of them could inherit, because the butler sobered up and snapped (It could also be he caught Fred ‘interfering’ with his niece a chambermaid there, it was rumored he also ‘interfered’ with his sister). Widdershins hall which sat on the grounds of a house that used to belong to One of the men who brought back English Magic for a brief time in the Regency. Olivia was close with Gawain when they were younger, but her studies pried them apart. She went to St. Ursula’s boarding school for girls, founded by German nuns, you could only speak German there, which she recalls as ‘strict, severe, and cold’. However, she did enjoy some aspects of it, Field hockey, fencing, her fellow students and new teacher Frauline Hirsch taught a rudimentary psychology course.It hooked her, mainly because she wanted to manipulate and blackmail her ‘friends’ (especially that Emily ‘bunny’ Pole and Cecilia Bartliegh-St. Colherst fuck ‘em) and lovers. ……………….. Well, she goes leaves school. And tries to become a Psychologist an ambition supported by her wealthy Maternal Grandparents. Pals around with Gawain for little bit, but then seems to realize that She hates him and the rest of her immediately family. Seems to think she is a better person then them (She’s like 1/4 decent but not enough to be like…. moral?) Studies a bit at Oxford, then crosses the pond, and studies in the USA. Eventually her ambition and accolades grant her the post of Head psychology at the troubled Akhram asylum in Massachusetts, she is 25. She vows that she was change this corrupt and blighted institution to make it a place of healing and rest. However,…. that changes within the span of two years. She eventually takes to drinking heavily and over prescribing lobotomies, restraints and medication. She tell her confidant and employee Nurse Betty Grimmson: ‘this place takes your hopes, dreams, ambitions, positions itself and shits all over them’ Olivia Black-Flash remains head of psychology until she retires in the early 70s.

What happened in those two years? She met and fell in love with Miskatonic Adjunct, Archeologist, and adventurer, Charolette ‘Charli’ Roy. Who she dismissed as a silly, brash, treasure hunter but then despite herself or maybe because Charli with her olive complexion, butch style and charm was just her type and they fell in love. Then some plot happened yadda yadda yadda, Charli ends up Literally SCREAMING INSANE and under Olivia’s charge in the span of two years, due to the LOVECRATIAN NATURE OF THE PLOT. Mericfully shortly after that, Charli ‘accidentally’ suffocates in ‘her sleep, because of the position of her pillow’.

Charlotte ‘Charli’ Roy (B. 1895- D. 1928) ambitious, brash, butch, kinda a lesbian Indiana Jones or maybe Doc Savage. who knows? Basically her archeology is an excuse to go on adventures, and find treasure mostly. Sadly, her life ends in madhouse. She was a crack shot, boxer, P.H.D spoke 12 languages so was a VERY cunning Linguist, had been all over the world, Her father Beauregard, Roy was a wealthy scion of the old south, her mother Demeter Johnson his colored mistress who died in a yellow fever epidemic when Charli was three. Her father, who was technically a bachelor, did the decent thing, because well Charlotte was very light skinned with ‘good hair’ decided to raise her. As his adopted ward. So she grew up with her Grandma,unmarried aunts and Papa, they never revealed the truth. Just that her mother was kind, beautiful and very dead. Sadly, also all evidence of what she looked like was burnt up as well. Never knowing really, until her father himself lay on his death bed, when she was dying from cancer when Charli was eighteen…stuff happened like Charli getting a college education and a pHD and traveling all over on digs. And learning not only did dressing ‘like a man’ save her but she liked it better (NOT she she was BUTCH not Trans* never wanted to be a man…just wear pants and have short hair and smoke cigars). She proved herself useful though. And had many adventures until her she ended up teaching as an adjunct at Miskatonic ….yadda yadda yadda plot shit and then. she sees something that drive her MAD and dies in a MADHOUSE.

Betty Rubenkopf nee Grimmson- (B 1906- D. 1992(?) Short, stout, with slightly bugling wide eyes, foul breath and mousey hair. Betty is, sweet, dumb and cunning with a astounding strength she has chokehold that can fell any rampaging lunatic. She might be a deep-one hybrid. Her mother Nellie O’Dell was a waitress who sold her services on the side before she married Adam Grimmson who was the new cook at the diner. He may or may not have known, but he loved Nellie and they were dating when Nellie fell pregnant and subsequently married. Betty was born five months after the wedding. Besides Betty. they had four other kids: Sadie, Frank, Oscar, and Ada. Dad saved up and bought the Diner. All worked at the diner. Betty decided that no, being a waitress wasn’t for her. So she took nursing at a school near Arkham and I dunno was a brand new NURSE when Dr. Black-Flash was appointed head of psychology. The two formed a partnership, almost friendship that lasted until Dr. Black-Flash retired. By the 1930s Betty had made to Head nurse, then her long time Fiancé (they dated for four years, where engaged for two. Walter was ten years older and like so pathetic, and pudgy).

Walter Rubenkopf finally pulled his socks up, left home and they got married in 1941, she and to quit for a while and push out some kids like six kids: Doris, Arnold, Adam, Oscar, Susy and Linda. when Her youngest was started school she went back and quickly regained her old positions which she held held 1969. Mainly because she couldn’t knock out crazies like she used to and she wanted to spend time with her grandbabies (Also Walter was having trouble finding his pants… and like most things).

#Orginal characters #Writing #Text #Ideas #Horror #Lovecraftian #Blackadder #Flashman #IT CAME FROM THE IDEA DUMP FILE

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