‘My Son is Mentally Ill’ So listen up

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By Wayne Drash
Video and photography by Evelio Contreras

He is 14 and hears voices. He’s been hospitalized more than 20 times. Stephanie Escamilla is tired of seeing the country focus on the mentally ill only when there’s a national tragedy. So she and her son are telling their story — of a family on the brink.
San Antonio, Texas (CNN)
To continue reading, click here. 

Depressed? You May Not Be Able to Enter the U.S.

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Depressed? You May Not Be Able to Enter the U.S.Could you imagine being discriminated against because you had a broken arm? Or a diagnosis of cancer? Or suffered from a concussion (like hundreds of pro sports players do every year) and were denied rights everyone else enjoys?
What if you suffered from clinicaldepression and have been, at past times in your life, severely depressed? Should the government be allowed to discriminate against you because of a mental health diagnosis?
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s agency of Customs and Border Protection apparently thinks that maybe sometimes the answer should be “yes.”
You’d think I was making this up. Sadly, I’m not.
The person who had this scary, Orwellian experience is Ellen Richardson as she dealt with an unnamed U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent who denied her entry to the U.S. after apparently discovering her 2012 hospitalization for depression. She was only passing through the U.S. to get to a planned Caribbean cruise she had booked (and tickets for).
Valerie Hauch, over at the Toronto Star has the story:

[The Border agent] cited the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, Section 212, which denies entry to people who have had a physical or mental disorder that may pose a “threat to the property, safety or welfare’’ of themselves or others.
The agent gave her a signed document which stated that “system checks’’ had found she “had a medical episode in June 2012’’ and that because of the “mental illness episode’’ she would need a medical evaluation before being accepted. 

Click here to read on. 

10 Ways Parents Can Help Prevent Cyberbullying

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By  

10 Ways Parents Can Help Prevent CyberbullyingThe brave new world of technology has spawned a monster: the cyberbully. According to the websitestopbullying.gov, cyberbullying is bullying that uses electronic methods such as cell phones and computers. It can include hurtful text messages and photos, among others. Most children are aware of cyberbullying. Thanks to the efforts of many school districts in America, most parents are as well.
In just one example of the pain it can cause, a 12-year-old girl in Florida leapt to her death in September 2013 after having been cyberbullied by two girls, one 12 and the other 14.
Despite the conveniences of modern technology, it seems also to have a sinister side. The statistics on cyberbullying are increasingly alarming.
According to www.dosomething.org, a website for teens that addresses social issues, nearly 43 percent of all kids have been bullied online, 1 in 4 has had it happen more than once and only 1 in 10 victims will inform a parent or trusted adult of their abuse. Most disturbing, as reported on this same website, those being cyberbullied are 2 to 9 times more likely to consider committing suicide.
The cyberbully targets his or her victim with emails, tweets and texts, rendering impotent the old adage that “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” If the perpetrator’s aim is accurate, striking countless blows to the most vulnerable girl or boy in any social or classroom setting, the words do hurt; in fact, they have the potential to kill.
How can parents prevent their child from being a victim, a bystander, or even the instigator of cyberbullying? Here are some tips to consider:
  1. Know your child’s passwords and screen names for all electronic devices.
  2. Be aware what your child writes on his or her electronic device(s). Parents should carefully monitor the family computer as well.
  3. Learn the current terminology used by youth today when corresponding with each other. There is a reason why most kids don’t want the adults in their lives visit their Facebook or Twitter pages: privacy.   
Click here to continue reading. 

3 Canadian veterans from Afghan war found dead in a week

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Suicide of Michael McNeil from CFB Petawawa latest during tough week for Canadian Forces

The Canadian Press Posted: Nov 29, 2013 6:33 AM ET Last Updated: Nov 29, 2013 10:51 AM ET
Canadian soldiers are currently leaving Afghanistan and all soldiers are expected to be out by early 2014.The Canadian military says it will investigate the suicides of three veterans from the war in Afghanistan in less than one week.
The latest to take his life is Warrant Officer Michael McNeil, whose body was found at CFB Petawawa on Wednesday.
Earlier this week, Master Corporal William Elliott died at his home near CFB Shilo in southwestern Manitoba and Master Bombardier Travis Halmrast died in a Lethbridge, Alta., hospital after a suicide attempt in a jail.
The military will undertake boards of inquiry into each death — routine procedures that look at the circumstances and systemic issues that may have led to a particular incident.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the families, friends and colleagues of these departed individuals, and I wish all those associated with those individuals peace during this difficult time,” defence minister, Rob Nicholson, said on Thursday.

Conservatives note treatment, counselling

Earlier in the day, Nicholson called the deaths “very troubling,” but noted since 2011, the Conservative government has poured millions of extra dollars into the treatment and counselling of returning soldiers.
“I am disturbed by the loss of three of our soldiers,” said Lt.-Gen. Marquis Hainse. Click here to continue reading. 

Criminal psychiatrist reveals notorious killings videos triggered his own PTSD

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Angela Mulholland, CTVNews.ca
Published Thursday, November 14, 2013 9:29AM EST 
Last Updated Thursday, November 14, 2013 11:30AM EST
For years, forensic psychiatrist Dr. John Bradford has been renowned as an expert in his field with a keen ability to look into the minds of criminals. But now Bradford is revealing that watching videos of the crimes committed by the likes of Paul Bernardo and Russell Williams led to a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. And he’s warning that it could happen to others.
Over the course of his career, Bradford has seen videos that few others have: the footage that Paul Bernardo and his then-wife Karla Homolka took of their crimes, as well as the images of Russell Williams killing his victims.
Watching the videos was necessary for his job, but Bradford says he didn’t realize the images were staying with him and eroding his own mental health.
“I think I first noticed things after the Bernardo video tapes,” Bradford told CTV’s Canada AM from Ottawa Thursday. “There was one particular scene in that that seemed to play over and over again in my head and that had audio with it.”
Many others who watched the Bernardo videos were just as affected as he was; in fact, many jurors were offered counselling after the trial.
But Bradford thought he had remained detached from what he saw. His thoughts about the videos seemed to fade after a few months, he says, and while the memories sometimes resurfaced, he didn’t think they bothered him.
“But then, when I was exposed to the Russell Williams videotapes, it really just hit me much harder,” he said.
Viewing both the Bernardo and the Williams tapes, Bradford watched women being raped and listened to them pleading for their lives, knowing that they were about to die. Within 30 minutes of seeing the Williams tapes, Bradford says he began to have a breakdown.


To read more, click here.

Sleep Therapy Seen as an Aid for Depression

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By 

Published: November 18, 2013
Curing insomnia in people with depression could double their chance of a full recovery, scientists are reporting. The findings, based on an insomnia treatment that uses talk therapy rather than drugs, are the first to emerge from a series of closely watched studies of sleep and depression to be released in the coming year.

The new report affirms the results of a smaller pilot study, giving scientists confidence that the effects of the insomnia treatment are real. If the figures continue to hold up, the advance will be the most significant in the treatment of depression since the introduction of Prozac in 1987.
Depression is the most common mental disorder, affecting some 18 million Americans in any given year, according to government figures, and more than half of them also have insomnia.
Experts familiar with the new report said that the results were plausible and that if supported by other studies, they should lead to major changes in treatment. Click here to continue reading. 

Editorial: Washington must treat the mentally ill

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The recent Seattle Times series on “boarding” of psychiatric patients in emergency rooms is like a scene out of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” circa 2013.
Seattle Times Editorial
A compelling fiscal and moral case can be made that the chronic neglect of Washington’s mental-health system has reached “epidemic” proportions.
That word leaps out of recent stories by Seattle Times reporter Brian M. Rosenthal about the inhumane “boarding” of psychiatric patients in hospital emergency rooms.
Due to an acute shortage of psychiatric beds, Rosenthal found involuntarily committed patients were boarded 4,566 times in the past 12 months. They linger for days on end, usually without psychiatric care and often strapped down.
It is “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” circa 2013.
The Department of Social and Health Services estimates the practice wastes $10.8 million a year. But that number is grossly low.
It doesn’t account for worsening of patients’ illness, thereby extending needed treatment. Nor does it include hospitals’ uncompensated costs of shoehorning psychiatric patients into primary care, or the costs of emergency-room medical staff injured by patients inappropriately parked there.
This is a problem of supply and demand. The Legislature has broadened the criteria for involuntary psychiatric commitment even as the number of inpatient psychiatric beds fell by 252 statewide since 2007. That trend line puts Washington at the bottom in the nation for community psychiatric beds per capita. Click here to continue reading. 

Charity lobbies for $100M national youth mental health program

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BY CHRIS COBB, OTTAWA CITIZEN OCTOBER 3, 2013


OTTAWA — Canada desperately needs a federally funded National Youth Suicide Prevention Fund to help treat the increasing number of youngsters suffering from mental illness, according to a new campaign launched Thursday by the charity group Partners for Mental Health.
The Right By You campaign is urging the federal government to contribute $100 million to the fund over the next four years and is also calling on provincial governments to double, by 2016, the number of children receiving mental health services by contributing $1,000 per child, the equivalent of eight treatment sessions.
About 760 Canadian youngsters commit suicide each year and, says the group, almost all suffered from a mental illness such as depression..
In Ottawa, where young people can wait more than a year for mental health treatment, the demand is increasing dramatically.
In the past year, 2,900 children and youth visited the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) for a mental health emergency — an increase of 64 per cent since 2009-10. It is the highest number of pediatric emergency mental health visits in the province.
Currently, according to Partners for Mental Health, only 25 per cent of young Canadians who need mental health care actually get it.

“It’s a reflection of how underfunded mental health services are across the life span but particularly for children and youth” said CHEO’s psychiatry department chief Simon Davidson Thursday. Click here to continue reading. 

One in six Canadians said they required mental-health care in last year: Statscan

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DAVID ANDREATTA
The Globe and Mail
Published 
Last updated 
One in six Canadians believe they needed mental health care in the past year, yet a third of them did not get adequate help, according to a Statistics Canada report.
The report, released Wednesday, was the first of its kind and one that mental health experts say sheds light on the gap between supply and demand for services.Its findings were based on data culled from the agency’s 2012 Canadian Community Health Survey, which polled more than 25,000 people over the age of 15.
The agency’s last mental health poll was in 2002. The survey at that time, however, measured only the prevalence of select mental health disorders and not individuals’ perceptions of whether they needed help.
Paul Kurdyak, a clinical psychiatrist and director of health systems research at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, said the findings offered a fresh perspective.
“The perception of needing help is something that needs to be given some importance,” Dr. Kurdyak said. “People don’t seek help based on whether they meet some criteria [for a mental disorder]; they seek help based on whether they think they need it. That is a relevant shift.” For more, click here.