Jenny Lawson's Furiously Happy

As I read the book I felt as if I was spending time with Matthew Homes. I felt his emotional journey, and at times his sleep deprivation when reading the book in wee hours of the morning. Even though I felt as if I was Matt, I also knew I was lucky. With this book I knew that mental health is such a fragile thing, and that Matt would always have a harder time than I. From this book alone, I learned so much on what it is like surviving and living with a mental illness.

Often, in society, mental illnesses are seen almost as a taboo subject. This often hinders people from seeking the help they truly need. The fear of negative reactions was one of the main things that inhibited me from asking for help. When things finally reached the breaking point, I realized that other people could only assist me in my recovery. Ultimately, I had to want to get better. I knew it would not happen right away. I knew it would be difficult and I knew I would have times where I felt like nothing was changing. Ultimately, I knew I could not continue living the way I was. I knew I had to

figure in society. The woman wants so badly to get better and she knows her writing will

In this article, Patrick J. Corrigan, Scott B. Morris, Patrick W. Michaels, Jennifer D. Rafacz, and Nicolas Rüsch discuss various approaches to challenge the stigma that surrounds mental

Consequently, mentally ill patients as well as those placed in psychiatric facilities are often branded as zombies (Hochwälder, 2013). Therefore, the recovery process of such people is often difficult because they face humiliation verbally or physically from others. As such, this website is very useful to people who are trying to liberate themselves from the stigma that comes with being a psychiatric patient. The design of the “Antipsychiatry Coalition” website is such that it makes use of links to provide information on various issues that revolve around mental illness and psychiatry (Antipsychiatry, 2015). For instance, the link on “myth of psychiatric diagnosis” enables the reader to read and learn about the things that people believe about psychiatry yet they are false.

I enjoyed this book primarily because it showed me a completely different side of journalism that I was not previously familiar with. While it provides an in-depth education in terms of depression, mental illness and the ever growing world of journalism, it does so in such way that readers are constantly wanting to turn pages. In a tale of illness, perseverance and redemption, Wong provides a fantastic insight for not only future journalists, but as well as anyone dealing with depression. Her knowledge on both subjects are truly inspiring and really made me realize how much I, as a future journalist, underestimated this career. Like Paulo Coelho said, “life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at

Till this day I sometimes go into relapse and revert back to my previous self. Overall, I was able to relate to this book extremely well. In many cases, the things she experienced and explained were exactly the way I felt when going through that period of my life.

Hurt is the strongest type of human emotion that all experience. William Wordsworth describes poetry as the “overflow of powerful feelings”. For an individual with a mental illness powerful emotions are a regular occurrence. “I am just carbon and bad timing” describes a poet with OCD. Poetry enforced the belief of the tremendous hurt these people experience. The lack of conforming to conventionalism has led them to being excluded from society “do you think I am a freak…a nut… a loon?” These words all carry greatly negative connotations and strip away the humanity of a person labelled as one. By dehumanizing those with mental illness indescribable hurt is

This poem talks to the mentally ill. It reminds those living with a psychological disorder that their lives and thinking are valuable. Thus, imagination and enjoyment should not be constrained by the stigma of having a different worldview. Moreover, it uses metaphors to connect both world: the insane and the sane.

Book Report The novel, An Unquiet mind, began with Kay Redfeild Jamison’s story as a young child who was always moving to different places and her troubles with accommodating her life every time she moved. As she grows up, she experience her first manic-depressive illness around the age of 17, in which throughout the book, stresses her struggles in trying to control her illness. The book ended with her being able to take control of her illness and making a life that once gave her much trouble and sadness, tolerable. This book provided me with all sorts of emotions to carry on reading it.

With mental illness being so prominent, it becomes crucial to study why there are so many negative views directed toward those who are suffering from an illness. These negative views often include the idea that they are violent, incompetent, and at fault for their illness (Corrigan, 2004). Not only do the individuals suffer from the actual illness, but they are also forced to suffer from these unwarranted stereotypes. These views that society holds, in conjunction with the labels given to those with a mental illness, often make their condition exponentially worse. The stigmas they are subject to often impede their road to recovery, as well as create additional stress for those who help to care for them (World Health Organization, 2001). (1)

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock has been on my TBR since I learned about the anti-bullying week. It was on the recommended reading list. I also knew that this book deals with mental health and depression. Somehow, I was in the mood to read books about depression. So I picked this book up.

Nikolai Gogol’s Diary of a madman and Edgar Allen Poe’s The tell-tale heart dive into the world of mental illness stress the fact that the reality of mental illness can be hard to accept. In both stories we watch the development of mental illnesses as both characters deal with the denial of their mental state. One character is aware of the changes that he is going through while the other character has no idea that he is spiraling into a world unknown. These authors highlight the reality of accepting mental disorders through their first person story plots and the tones of each of their characters.

Sally Brampton was a successful magazine editor and prize-winning journalist, In 1985 she launched Elle magazine in the UK, but all of that was just a cover up with a glamorous career. Nobody knew how awful things had gotten for her. Understanding depression varies from person to person. One person may understand it and know what’s going on, while another person will totally be lost and believe that you are making everything up. While reading the book one particular quote stuck out to me, it helped me understand depression more than I ever have (“Sometimes," says a fellow depressive, "I wish I was in a full body cast, with every bone in my body broken. That 's how I feel anyway. Then, maybe,

Mental illness is one of the most sought-after themes that has often been explored and represented in literature over a remarkably wide variety of writings. The various factors that threaten a character’s sanity can range from all those traumatic occurrences and events, or a combination of a number of long and short-term factors that may trigger the character’s decline into pressure, from several vast and impersonal sources. Also, very rarely does this threatened character succeed or emerge from the suffering undefeated and empowered, if not engulfed by it. Esther Greenwood is portrayed as one such character in Sylvia Plath’s widely renowned autobiographical novel ‘The Bell Jar’. The novel is a searing portrayal of a woman’s descent into desolation and depression. Depression as we understand it, is a chronic illness characterized by feelings of sadness and loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities, which may lead to several emotional and physical problems and nonetheless, require a long term treatment when it comes to recovery. (Major Depressive Disorder; MDD, APA, DSM-5). The Bell Jar is viewed as a piece of literature that aims to humanize the people suffering from a mental illness, rather than stigmatize them. It brings out the real facade of depression and the oppressing hopelessness and loss of identity that comes along with it. Corrosive feelings of worthlessness, self-loathing along with suicidal ideas and overall impaired functioning is an indication of major