The untimely death of child actress Erin Moran over the weekend — at age 56, her body was discovered in an Indiana trailer park — leaves an abyss in each of us even though we may not recognize the depth, and the severity, of the hole. For those of us of a certain age, Erin Moran, will always be Joanie — the spunky, spicy, daughter on the first season of Happy Days.
My article on Seven Depressions yesterday brought an old friend back in touch who shared with me that he has been suffering from depression most of his adult life. He appreciated the bluntness of the post that depressed people are sort of stuck in their lives traveling from one medication to another looking for the right mix of meds to help them build a bridge to start feeling average again. Some never feel better. Nobody finds a cure.
We know most of my friends are still medicated and, the other day, I was concerned when I read an article claiming that most depressive people on daily maintenance medication will have seven major episodes over the arc of their lives. The demarcation between depressive events was notched as major changes in medication. Some of my young friends have had only a couple of events. Some of my older friends are deeper into their modes of seven.
I was talking to a financial planner friend of mine the other day, and one of the standardized questions he asks clients and potential clients is if they had to, could they come up with a thousand dollars in one day for an emergency?
Continue reading → Could You Come Up with a Thousand Dollars in Cash Today?
On April 29, 2011, I wrote an article for the Boles University Blog — Bipolarism and Sugar Consumption — where I argued depressed people were self-medicating with refined sugar to create a false high that then quickly resulted in an even deeper, depressive, low:
Bipolarism is defined by manic highs and severe lows and medication can help keep that under control, but there is the silent danger of the over consumption of sugar to help retain those dramatic highs and valley lows — but few patients and doctors are prescient enough to also prescribe a “no sugar” diet to Bipolar patients in addition to medication.
If you suffer from Bipolarism, and if you crave sugar to unwittingly help replicate the emotional highs and lows of your disease — try carving sugar out of your diet, and that includes alcohol, too — and see if you don’t immediately start feeling warm and neutral and safe again.
We all know sugar is terrible for us — sugar is The New White Devil — and yet we can’t seem to escape its granular grasp. We live in a sugary circle of feeling low, boosting our blood sugar with sugar and then crashing again. How can we escape this treacherous roundabout?
I love shopping online. I can take my time. I can easily compare styles and prices. I don’t have to stand in line or fight any crowds. The other day, I visited a prominent and stylishly fashionable mall I hadn’t been in for over five years, and the changes were astonishing.
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