Leslie Glass's Blog, page 374

Why It’s Not OK To Call Kanye West ‘Crazy’

From Health.com:

So Kanye West tweeted this week—a lot. On Wednesday, the rapper talked about his home, emoji preferences, and why President Donald Trump is his “brother.” In response, people from all over the world (including his pal John Legend) expressed that they found his statements and pictures of his “Make America Great Again” hat offensive. And while Legend and many others were well-intentioned and respectful, some commenters were quick to call West “crazy” and mentally ill.

Kim Kardashian West defended her husband, tweeting:

“Mental Health Is No Joke And The Media Needs To Stop Spitting That Out So Casually. Bottom Line.”

Kardashian West has it right. Whether you agree or disagree with West’s posts, accusing him of having a psychological disorder insults those who actual do have one, and it spreads misinformation about what it means to live with depression, bipolar disorder, or a similar condition.

Stephen Hinshaw, PhD, a psychology professor at UC Berkeley and author of Another Kind of Madness: A Journey Through the Stigma and Hope of Mental Illness, tells Health how calling someone crazy stigmatizes those with actual mental disorders.

“Though it might be tempting to ‘diagnose’ or brand someone with views that you find abhorrent as ‘crazy’ or ‘psycho,’ doing so ignores the fact that mental disorders actually do exist and cause real pain and impairment—but require considerable time and effort on the part of the clinician to make an accurate diagnosis,” Hinshaw says. “No one can do this by reading someone’s political views.”

That applies to doctors and other professionals who are trained to diagnose mental disorders as well. It’s unethical, Hinshaw says, and runs afoul of a guideline instituted in the 1960s called the Goldwater Rule, after psychiatrists labeled 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater crazy because of his political views. A professional can only make a mental health disorder diagnosis after an exam.

Kanye is a celebrity example of why it’s wrong to call someone you disagree with nuts, bonkers, or psycho. But many of us have done it when we disagree with something a friend or coworkers says or posts. Next time you want to tell your sister or BFF that she’s insane because of an opinion she has, stop yourself and remember that mental disorders are legitimate illnesses, not insults.

“Given the rampant stigma that still exists regarding mental illness, even in 2018, such unjust accusations are likely to be damaging,” Hinshaw says. “These are slurs against unpopular views, not accurate diagnoses of conditions like PTSD, bipolar disorder or ADHD.”

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5 Ways Addiction Hijacks The Brain And Body

Our most primal relationship is between our brain and body. When drugs or alcohol enter the mix, the communication between these two crucial systems is impaired in these five ways. 

1. The Brain Relies On The Body

The brain needs the body to provide information about the environment. The body tells the brain about food sources, threats in the environment. In addiction, body and brain communication can become diverted towards drugs and alcohol.

2. Alcohol And Drugs Scramble Communication

When the brain senses a stressor, the brain sends information out to the body. Drugs and alcohol can stop the body from sending accurate replies to the brain. This can lead to a vicious cycle. The brain sends the same message over and over with growing intensity.

3. Changing Behavior Requires Efficient Body Brain Communication

Unfortunately, when drugs or alcohol are impairing the brain and body’s communication, change is more difficult. When the body is hyper-focused on triggers or cravings, conscious messages from the brain are often ignored.

4. Body Physiology Is Adaptive

Many interventions can help over-ride a dysfunctional body brain dynamic. In other words, recovery helps resolve the communication problems between the body and the brain.

5. Continued Use Creates A Disease In The Brain And Body System

At first, the brain and body adapt to drug and alcohol use. At some point the body and brain dynamics become maladaptive which leads to a disease state. Physical illness often sets in.

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Why Family Members Also Need Recovery

A client once told me, “Alcoholism is a fire that has raged through my family for generations. We’ve all been burned. We all carry its scars.”

Addiction Distorts Family Roles, Rules and Rituals

Addiction negatively affects the subsystems of:

Intimate adult relationships
Parent-child relationships
Sibling relationships

It also alters the family’s relationship with the outside environment. Most of all, it affects the long-term development of children exposed to parental addiction.

This concept isn’t new. Even back in the 1830s, T.S. Arthur’s novels and plays such as The Drunkard, One Cup More, and The Doom of the Drunkard vividly portrayed the devastating effects of alcoholism on the family.

In 1835, Robert MacNish observed that alcoholism could “descend from parents to their children.” He further explained that while this might stem from “bad example and imitation,” it was more likely a problem of “family predisposition.”

How Adult Children Are Affected

Childhood trauma resulting from parental addiction unfolds developmentally within three domains of adult life:

Emotional turmoil
Disorders of perception and thought
Self-destructive behaviors

Biological vulnerability, developmental trauma, and social learning elevate the risk children of alcoholics face in their own relationships with alcohol and other drugs.

Families Find Support In ACoA and Al-Anon

Pioneers Claudia Black, Sharen Wegscheider-Cruse, and Janet Woititz began to view the alcoholic’s family members as more than just sources of support for the alcoholic’s recovery. They were actually patients in their own right, who suffered from a condition that required treatment and support services.

This transition gave rise to a new clinical specialty within the psychotherapy and addictions fields, counseling children and adult children of alcoholics. It also gave rise to a broader social-support movement.

Codependency Often Co-exists With Addiction

Melody Beattie, John Bradshaw, and others extended the concept of co-alcoholism to the concept of codependence. Codependency was defined via an ever-expanding, all-encompassing symptom checklist. Fueled by Beattie’s writings and Bradshaw’s lectures spawned another family support group, Co-Dependents Anonymous.

In response to this wave of interest, addiction treatment programs began offering treatment tracks for persons suffering from the “disease of codependency.” They also lengthened residential stays for alcoholics and addicts to address “codependency issues.”

How Family Members Can Heal And Help

Family members affected by addiction have historically been a potent force. They pursued broader policy issues related to the sources and solutions of alcohol and other drug problems.

They also created support groups that provided a sanctuary of healing for family members wounded by addiction for more than 160 years. Today, more than 390,000 people find relief and support in one of the 30,000 Al-Anon registered groups. These groups provide family support and relief by other recovery mutual aid societies.

Finally, it only takes one person in recovery to change the whole family’s dynamic. Once one person starts setting boundaries and quits accepting unacceptable behavior, other members often change too.

Content originally published by William White. Note: Content may be edited for style and length. 

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Pharma Billionaire Arrested For Bribing Doctors To Prescribe Opioid Painkillers

From Fortune:

The same day President Donald Trump declared the opioid crisis a nationwide public health emergency, the federal government said it arrested a wealthy pharmaceutical company executive on charges of bribing doctors to needlessly prescribe his firm’s opioid painkiller.

The Department of Justice arrested Insys Therapeutics founder John Kapoor, 74, in Phoenix, it said Thursday. Kapoor was charged with using bribes and fraud to prop up sales of a pain medication called Subsys, a fentanyl spray typically used to treat cancer patients suffering excruciating pain.

Kapoor’s arrest comes nearly a year after former Insys CEO Michael Babich and five other onetime executives were arrested as part of an alleged “nationwide conspiracy.”

The Justice Department claims that Kapoor and other Insys executives offered bribes in the form of kickbacks to doctors who wrote “large numbers of prescriptions” for patients, many of whom did not have cancer. The Department also alleged that the executives defrauded insurers by forming a “reimbursement unit” dedicated to obtaining prior authorization from insurers who were reluctant to pay for the drug.

“These Insys executives allegedly fueled the opioid epidemic by paying doctors to needlessly prescribe an extremely dangerous and addictive form of fentanyl,” Phillip Coyne, special agent in charge for the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said in a press release.

“The allegations of selling a highly addictive opioid cancer pain drug to patients who did not have cancer, make them no better than street-level drug dealer,” added Harold Shaw, a Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent.

Insys did not immediately return Fortune’s request for comment.

Insys’ stock closed down nearly 23% following the news of Kapoor’s arrest, pushing the company’s valuation down to $417 million. It was a stunning retreat, considering the company was valued at over $19 billion as recently as 2015, when concerns about the company’s practices were first raised. (Insys is now also developing its own drug to reverse opioid overdoses.)

Insys’ falloff has cost Kapoor a hefty portion of his own net worth, which is made up in part of company stock. At Insys’ peak, Kapoor’s current stake in the company was worth over $1.9 billion. By Thursday’s close, it was down to $246.7 million. (Kapoor still holds a $1 billion stake in Akorn Pharmaceuticals, a generic drug maker where he also serves as board chairman. Akorn’s stock was down about 1% at Thursday’s close.)

Kapoor is set to make a court appearance in Phoenix at a later date.

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When Your Child Can’t Feel Loved

What do we do when we have tried to love our adult children, and they continue to feel unloved by us? It’s painful.

You Don’t Love Me You Have Never Loved Me

When my son, Mitch, who is no longer speaking to me, complained that he didn’t feel loved, I was shocked. How could he even think that? I had sacrificed and given so much to show how much I loved him. I tried for years to make him feel loved. How had I failed to get that message across? I went to my therapist, and her answer helped me understand a possible answer.

Rocks Don’t Feel Love

She explained that you could pour water on a rock all day long, but it wouldn’t absorb it. My son’s heart can’t absorb my love because he hates himself so much. Often with addiction there is a tremendous amount of self loathing. His constant need to hurt me stems from his own self-hatred.  She reminded me that I only owned 50% of every relationship. He also owned 50% of our relationship. Because of his current state of resentment and anger, he wouldn’t be able to accept my love for him.

What Is A Parent To Do

I can spend the rest of my life pouring love into my son, but until he is healthy enough to receive it, he will continue to feel “unloved.” I cannot control how anyone receives my efforts to show them love. This insight has helped me “let go and let God.” It’s helped me stop feeling guilty when Mitch complains he doesn’t feel loved. I am secure from my recovery work in Al-Anon that I have loved them as well as I could.

It is not my child’s job to judge me as a parent. My therapist told me it wasn’t even my job to judge myself. “It is what it is.”

I continue to wait for the day when Mitch has a change of heart. Until then I am committed to having a happy life. I am complete person and am more than just Mitch’s mom. I give myself permission to love my love and Mitch permission to continue on his own spiritual journey. Until he is ready I will continue to love him from afar with the hope he will one day be able to absorb all the love I have for him.

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Addiction Is A Disease That Requires Better Treatments & More Meds

From Jessica Hulsey Nickel @ Sun Sentinel: I remember standing on my tippy toes to be eye to eye with the kitchen counter, trying my best not to spill as I poured the orange juice into the glass. Something about the acidity would settle my mom’s stomach, slightly easing her wrenching symptoms of heroin withdrawal —something akin to the stomach flu mixed with food poisoning, but a hundred times worse.

My mother was one of the millions of people who suffer from the disease of addiction in this country. In the decades since my childhood, we have made great strides in treatment: we are now fortunate to count buprenorphine, methadone, and extended release naltrexone in our toolkit to effectively treat opioid use disorders. I can’t help but wonder how my mother’s life might have been different, how my childhood might have been different, if she had had access to the treatments now available.

Medication Assisted Treatment can be lifesaving, and must be made more widely available, as Congress’ bipartisan budget and Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) prioritize. The medications currently available do not work for everyone though, and we must make developing new and innovative approaches to treatment a top public health priority. Medication side-effects, both physical and emotional, and the logistics of accessing treatment, can be significant barriers to patients as they desperately try to rebuild their lives and find recovery.

Due to the stigma of this disease, we tend to write off patients who are struggling, dismiss their challenges as lack of motivation. In no other disease space do we do this: when a diabetes patient is experiencing challenges with their insulin, or when a cardiac patient is having trouble with their blood pressure medication, we readily provide alternate therapies.

We need more medications and better treatments for the disease of addiction. We don’t have enough medication options for alcohol use disorder, and 15 million people today are struggling with alcohol addiction. We don’t have a single medication for methamphetamine use disorder nor one for cocaine use disorder, though we’re seeing alarming increases in overdose deaths due to cocaine, particularly among our African American patient population. Like any other disease, our patients deserve medical breakthroughs, new medicines, advancements in science and research.

Each day, we lose 174 people to drug overdoses. That’s the equivalent of nearly three sold-out 747s every week, seven if we include alcohol-related deaths. These are our mothers, fathers, children, friends and neighbors, their lives cut short and lost to this disease. As a nation, we can no longer afford to continue to treat addiction like a moral failing, instead of like the medical condition science has proven it to be. We must take the lessons learned from the treatment of other chronic diseases and apply them to the disease of addiction, with the urgency this epidemic requires.

To accomplish this, the Addiction Policy Forum is proud to be raising awareness of the efforts of the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institute on Drug Abuse as they work to develop patient-focused treatments for opioid use disorders. We must work with policy makers, white lab coats, patients and families on the frontline of this devastating disease to better understand patients’ experiences with currently available treatments and to speed the development of new medications. Opportunities like this one — fighting stigma with science and elevating the voices of the human beings directly impacted by addiction — are why I have dedicated my life to this field. Together, we can solve this.

Jessica Hulsey Nickel is founder and president of the Washington, D.C.-based Addiction Policy Forum. She wrote this for InsideSources.com.

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10 Ways To Help When Children Are Anxious

From Clark Goldstein, PhD @ Child Mind Institute: When children are chronically anxious, even the most well-meaning parents can fall into a negative cycle and, not wanting a child to suffer, actually exacerbate the youngster’s anxiety. It happens when parents, anticipating a child’s fears, try to protect her from them. Here are pointers for helping children escape the cycle of anxiety.

1. The goal isn’t to eliminate anxiety, but to help a child manage it.

None of us wants to see a child unhappy, but the best way to help kids overcome anxiety isn’t to try to remove stressors that trigger it. It’s to help them learn to tolerate their anxiety and function as well as they can, even when they’re anxious. And as a byproduct of that, the anxiety will decrease or fall away over time.

2. Don’t avoid things just because they make a child anxious.

Helping children avoid the things they are afraid of will make them feel better in the short term, but it reinforces the anxiety over the long run. If a child in an uncomfortable situation gets upset, starts to cry—not to be manipulative, but just because that’s how she feels—and her parents whisk her out of there, or remove the thing she’s afraid of, she’s learned that coping mechanism, and that cycle has the potential to repeat itself.

3. Express positive—but realistic—expectations.

You can’t promise a child that her fears are unrealistic—that she won’t fail a test, that she’ll have fun ice skating, or that another child won’t laugh at her during show & tell. But you can express confidence that she’s going to be okay, she will be able to manage it, and that, as she faces her fears, the anxiety level will drop over time. This gives her confidence that your expectations are realistic, and that you’re not going to ask her to do something she can’t handle.

4. Respect her feelings, but don’t empower them.

It’s important to understand that validation doesn’t always mean agreement. So if a child is terrified about going to the doctor because she’s due for a shot, you don’t want to belittle her fears, but you also don’t want to amplify them.You want to listen and be empathetic, help her understand what she’s anxious about, and encourage her to feel that she can face her fears. The message you want to send is, “I know you’re scared, and that’s okay, and I’m here, and I’m going to help you get through this.”

5. Don’t ask leading questions.

Encourage your child to talk about her feelings, but try not to ask leading questions— “Are you anxious about the big test? Are you worried about the science fair?” To avoid feeding the cycle of anxiety, just ask open-ended questions: “How are you feeling about the science fair?”

6. Don’t reinforce the child’s fears.

What you don’t want to do is be saying, with your tone of voice or body language: “Maybe this is something that you should be afraid of.” Let’s say a child has had a negative experience with a dog. Next time she’s around a dog, you might be anxious about how she will respond, and you might unintentionally send a message that she should, indeed, be worried.

7. Encourage the child to tolerate her anxiety.

Let your child know that you appreciate the work it takes to tolerate anxiety in order to do what she wants or needs to do. It’s really encouraging her to engage in life and to let the anxiety take its natural curve. We call it the “habituation curve”—it will drop over time as she continues to have contact with the stressor. It might not drop to zero, it might not drop as quickly as you would like, but that’s how we get over our fears.

8. Try to keep the anticipatory period short.

When we’re afraid of something, the hardest time is really before we do it. So another rule of thumb for parents is to really try to eliminate or reduce the anticipatory period. If a child is nervous about going to a doctor’s appointment, you don’t want to launch into a discussion about it two hours before you go; that’s likely to get your child more keyed up. So just try to shorten that period to a minimum.

9. Think things through with the child.

Sometimes it helps to talk through what would happen if a child’s fear came true—how would she handle it? A child who’s anxious about separating from her parents might worry about what would happen if they didn’t come to pick her up. So we talk about that. If your mom doesn’t come at the end of soccer practice, what would you do? “Well I would tell the coach my mom’s not here.” And what do you think the coach would do? “Well he would call my mom. Or he would wait with me.” A child who’s afraid that a stranger might be sent to pick her up can have a code word from her parents that anyone they sent would know. For some kids, having a plan can reduce the uncertainty in a healthy, effective way.

10. Try to model healthy ways of handling anxiety.

There are multiple ways you can help kids handle anxiety by letting them see how you cope with anxiety yourself. Kids are perceptive, and they’re going to take it in if you keep complaining on the phone to a friend that you can’t handle the stress or the anxiety. I’m not saying to pretend that you don’t have stress and anxiety, but let kids hear or see you managing it calmly, tolerating it, feeling good about getting through it.

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More Than 1 In 20 US Kids Have Anxiety Or Depression

From Wolters Kluwer Health @ Science Daily: About 2.6 million American children and adolescents had diagnosed anxiety and/or depression in 2011-12, reports an analysis of nationwide data in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, the official journal of the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.

The number of children with diagnosed anxiety — but not depression — has increased in recent years, according to the new report. The lead author was Rebecca H. Bitsko, PhD, of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Study Shows High Rates and Impact of Anxiety and Depression in American Youth

The researchers analyzed data from the nationally representative National Survey of Children’s Health for the years 2003, 2007, and 2011-12. In the most recent year, more than 65,000 parents were asked about problems with anxiety and/or depression (diagnosed by a doctor or other healthcare professional) in their children aged six to 17 years.

In the 2011-12 survey, 5.3 percent of children and teens had current anxiety or depression. The prevalence of current anxiety increased significantly between surveys: from 3.5 percent in 2007 to 4.1 percent in 2011-12. By comparison, the prevalence of current depression showed no significant change: 2.5 and 2.7 percent, respectively.

“These estimates correspond with approximately two million children aged six to 17 years in 2011-12 with current anxiety, 1.4 million children with current depression, 2.6 million with current anxiety or depression, and 760,000 children with both,” Dr. Bitsko and coauthors write. The percentage of children who had ever been diagnosed with anxiety or depression increased from 5.4 percent in 2003 to 8.4 percent in 2011-12.

Children with anxiety and/or depression were more likely to have other diagnosed chronic health conditions as well, including neurobehavioral disorders and obesity. Even after adjustment for other health problems, the presence of anxiety or depression was associated with increased use of healthcare services, more problems at school, and higher levels of aggravation for parents.

“Despite significant healthcare needs, nearly 20 percent of children with anxiety or depression did not receive mental health treatment in the past year,” Dr. Bitsko and coauthors write. Only about one-third of the children with anxiety or depression had a “medical home” — that is, a usual source of healthcare with referrals and care coordination, if needed.

Based on repeated surveys of a nationwide sample of parents, the study provides new information on the burden of anxiety and depression among US children and adolescents. The reasons for the increase in parent-reported anxiety are unclear. This trend may reflect improved identification or increased use of mental health services, or an increase in the number of children experiencing anxiety symptoms, the authors suggest.

Based on repeated surveys in nationally representative samples, the study provides new insights into the prevalence and burden of anxiety and depression in children and teens. The researchers note that the national estimates are lower than data from community-based studies, “suggesting that child anxiety may be under-diagnosed.”

“Children with anxiety and depression may have needs that go beyond diagnosis and mental health treatment,” Dr. Bitsko comments,

“Anxiety and depression are associated with school problems, parenting stress, and unmet medical needs. Parents, healthcare providers, and teachers can look for ways to support children with anxiety and depression in all areas of the child’s life.”

The researchers emphasize the need for further research to identify factors associated with the increased prevalence of anxiety, and to evaluate how improved care coordination and other strategies can improve the health and well-being of children with anxiety and depression.

Story Source:

Materials provided by Wolters Kluwer Health. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Worried About Your Alcohol Consumption? Sober Moms Share Advice

From Megyn Kelly @ Today: From raising children to work stress, many moms deal with “mommy burnout” by drinking.

Two mothers, who are now more than four years sober, open up on Megyn Kelly TODAY about how a few glasses of wine evolved into binge drinking, mental health issues and even driving while intoxicated.

 “My kids say they like mom better without alcohol,” says mother and psychotherapist Kelley Kitley, who was joined by writer and mother Laura McKowen.

Megyn Kelly also talks with friend and mother of three Aidan Donnelley Rowley who said, “My story is really a story of self-medication, and I didn’t really know that.”

If you think alcohol may be affecting your life or serving as a crutch, it’s time to get curious about your behavior.

That’s one of several tips from three women who decided to stop drinking. “I want the women who are watching to know that we are never alone. There needs to be no shame attached to this,” mother and psychotherapist Kelley Kitley told Megyn Kelly.

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The Real Reason Why Cheech & Chong Say Pot’s Over

From Janice Willams @ Newsweek: The age of marijuana’s rebellious and cool status is officially over, according to Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong. While appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Monday, the longtime stoners revealed they were done doing comedy about the drug, claiming “pot’s over” now that stiff, un-cool government officials were now, suddenly, jumping on the cannabis reform bandwagon.It all started when late-night host Colbert asked Marin and Chong what they thought about the push for legalized pot now that Republicans like former House Speaker John Beohner—a longtime opponent of marijuana reform—were starting to support pot’s legalization. Both comedians admitted: “This news sucks.”

With marijuana entering the mainstream, Marin teased the plant had lost its allure and was now “boring.” Chong agreed, saying, “Now crusty old Republicans like John Boehner are into it. Pot’s over, man.”

Instead, the duo said they’d use their comedy to promote other items deemed illicit in the eyes of the government, “stuff that’s still illegal,” like the use of unpasteurized dairy products and the importing of exotic reptiles into the U.S.

Boehner, who was once quoted as “unalterably opposed” to decriminalizing marijuana, announced he was serving on the board of directors for Acreage Holdings, a cannabis company aiding in the fight for decreased marijuana restrictions. The company grows and sells legal marijuana and services 11 states. According to 68-year-old Boehner, he decided to join the company in effort to get veterans legal access to the drug.

Although Beohner’s newfound acceptance of marijuana raised eyebrows, his sentiments regarding the medical value of the plant falls in line with a growing number of Americans who believe patients and adults should be able to legally consume cannabis. A Pew Research Center report in January found 61 percent of U.S. adults were in favor of legal marijuana.

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